


Fragment

by James_Baelish



Category: Glass (2019), Split (2016), Unbreakable (2000)
Genre: CookieCrumb - Freeform, Eastrail 177 Trilogy, F/F, F/M, Glass (2019) - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-26
Updated: 2019-07-20
Packaged: 2019-08-29 14:01:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 79,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16745359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/James_Baelish/pseuds/James_Baelish
Summary: Weary of a secret life of abuse, Casey Cooke seeks out the only one who has ever understood her: Kevin Crumb’s volatile personality called The Beast.  But it’s her dangerous abductor Dennis who awaits her.  The pair forms a deadly pact to serve The Beast while fleeing from two detectives closing in and desperately striving to stay one step ahead of the imminent presence of David Dunn.





	1. I.  For Her Consideration

**Author's Note:**

> Some things to keep in mind while reading this fan novel:
> 
> 1\. I began writing this in February; it was meant to be a ten page PWP crack one-shot for a friend who requested it. However, because I’m a HUGE Eastrail fan since its initial Unbreakable days, and because I’m a deep thinker, it morphed into this novel which is currently 12 chapters of 255 pages and still counting. I hoped to finish it by Glass’s premiere date but the story became MUCH larger than I anticipated so that deadline is no longer feasible. It will include my theories and predictions regarding what will happen in Glass so it will be interesting to see how right I am (I’m notoriously good at predicting Night’s movies just from trailers and posters so don’t kill me if I’m right about anything; spoilers are certainly unintentional. Night and I seem to think too much alike for him to surprise me.)
> 
> 2\. Fragment is NOT my imagining of what Glass is going to be. It’s meant to be the transitional story that bridges Unbreakable/Split to Glass; it takes place after Split but before Glass. Though at first it seems like it’s Casey’s story, the novel belongs to Dennis. Essentially, it is HIS story.
> 
> 3\. My writing is like the unflinching gaze of a security camera. I don’t turn away. I don’t sugar coat. And I force my readers to watch with me. When ugly topics are discussed, keep this in mind. There will be many triggers for sensitive readers. Any Eastrail/Split fan is already aware of the ugly topic that this story will face. Be warned again.
> 
> 4\. The story contains two sets of flashbacks: the first set is Dennis’ first emergence as a child and the subsequent things that occurred. The second set is his re-emergence after Barry is assaulted by the Camden high schoolers that will lead up to the Split story as you know it. These flashbacks are in order according to which set they’re in but they run parallel and both sets of flashbacks can be in the same chapter so please be mindful to the details to understand if you’re in the early days flashbacks or the pre-Split flashbacks. It shouldn’t be difficult, but it was something I felt necessitated a warning in case you’re left scratching your head.
> 
> 5\. I was born with a pen in my hand. I’ve been a writer ever since I was able to write; my first story was written in kindergarten. I write original works as well as fanfiction. Like most artists, I had a Muse who meant a great deal to me but who died, leaving me incapacitated without his presence in my life. His death had numerous horrible effects on me; one of them was that I stopped writing for ten years. Until my friend made this writing request. Fragment is my journey back into the one thing that kept me going my whole life: my writing. Needless to say, this means that the story means a great deal to me. It also means that I feel like it sucks because I’d been away from writing for so long my ability to connect like I used to is very rusty. So please, be honest (if you don’t like it, it’s OK to tell me) but be kind because this story has helped end a decade long grieving process that nearly killed me.
> 
> 6\. I hope you enjoy it and continue reading as I post. I love to interact with my readers so don’t be shy. I’ve made several real life friends from my work. You could be one of them.
> 
> For Courtnee White, because she asked for a chair porn one shot and inadvertently helped me heal by saying she wouldn’t mind a novel. Much love, girl. You helped heal me through my gift of storytelling. I am forever indebted.

**Fragment**

**“The mind is everything.  What you think, you become.” - Buddha**

I. For Her Consideration

_“Your uncle’s here.  You ready to go?”_

Tonight, her fate was decided by two pivotal actions.  The second action that finalized the outcome was this announcement made by the officer while she sat in the back of the patrol car attempting to decompress from the horrors that, unlike the other girls, she’d been fortunate enough to survive.  After the question was put forward, her reluctance made her realize she was not going back.  Fortune, for her case, was relevant.  Her story began very differently from those of Claire’s and Marcia’s.  She had always lived in a hell they were only just visiting.  Had _they_ survived they would’ve been restored to nurturing families who would’ve aided their healing process; Casey Cooke would not be.  She didn’t wish the dead girls ill for that.  It wasn’t _their_ fault her life turned out the fucked up way it had.

For her, it was fresh from out of the clawed clutches of The Beast only to be delivered into the arms of a type of monster far crueler.  At least she was still alive, she tried without success to solace herself.  Yet the thought of going back to that house made her stomach seize with revulsion.

In truth, it didn’t mean much to be alive in her situation.  Not if she was going back home, or rather John’s house as she preferred to call it.  Home was with her dad where she had been a prized daughter, the only child of a lonely widower who would be decimated if he was alive and aware of the unthinkable things his brother did to her.  Her flesh creeped in memory of those heinous things and she couldn’t fathom what his reaction would’ve been.

There was _one_ dim light in the dismal abyss.  John’s wife Caroline was everything she should have been as a mother figure:  warm, generous, compassionate, the listening ear, the shoulder to cry on.  For all but one thing.  That single thing dimmed her light because she, like other women in her position, was oblivious to her husband’s incestuous affair with his niece.  At least Casey prayed that she was oblivious because she genuinely liked Caroline. She was always at war with herself to tell Caroline what was happening in the room up the hall from the marriage bed when she wasn’t at home but always fell short of only calling her name.  Just like she could never tell her dad and she damned herself for it repeatedly, she credited her detrimental need to protect her loved ones from what they could not protect her from.  There always lingered the fear that they couldn’t handle it, that if she told, then something worse would happen.  Maybe they would side with John rather than her.  Maybe they would kill John and go to prison _because_ of her.  Neither scenario was reasonable but the _possibility_ held her prisoner inside a treacherous cycle.

The last thing she wanted was to go home, back to that fractured life, even after her days in captivity by a madman.  Survival meant nothing if she was doomed to continue the way she always had.  For that, she may as well have let The Beast rip her apart.  Mutilation by his teeth and claws like the other two would’ve been a better fate than having her naked body mauled by her uncle.  That was a fate worse than death.  In death, there was at least dignity.  So she only stared in mute apathy at the officer who waited with a saint’s patience. Casey knew the officer sensed something was wrong but was either chalking her up to a harrowing experience or waiting to be given the word before taking action.

“She’s numbed by trauma,” were the words the officer used when Uncle John’s burly frame blocked the window of the cruiser, verifying Casey’s suspicion.  “Give her time, she’ll come around.  Be gentle.  She’s fragile right now.  She’s been through hell.”

John uttered a thank you to her.

“Casey Bear?”  he then addressed to Casey.  “Come on out.  Time to go home.”

The door opened with a vacuum sound redolent of what she would be sucked back into if she was stupid enough to get out of the car and willingly leave with that man.  Though she remained physically passive, she was engaged with inner turmoil from recalling uncounted moments of sexual abuse at her uncle’s hands.  Kevin Crumb’s abduction altered her irreparably in unexpected ways and she could never again tolerate what she suffered before.

Not even John’s coaxing voice and beckoning hand urged her to do more than stare with glazed eyes as he said, “I know you’ve been through a lot.  But it’s over now.  Come on.  Let’s get out of here.”

Anguished thoughts of what he would do to her later in celebration of her return raced through her mind and she still balked at moving.  She didn’t want to go!  She didn’t have to!  Look what she’d just been through!  How much more was she expected to endure?!  How could she be expected to go home to _that_?!  Hadn’t she been through enough?!

“Casey.”  John’s voice carried a sterner edge for his third summons.  “Come on.  Let’s go.  Your aunt is waiting in the car.  Don’t keep her waiting.”

Mention of Caroline at last put her into motion.  Finally sliding across the back seat, she ignored the hand he offered to help her out.  What the hell made him so certain she needed his help in any way?  She didn’t get it when it was needed most so why would it be needed now?  Nobody came to rescue her from Crumb; she rescued herself.  In this fairytale, the princess beat the villain and nobody was there to help her.  She did it on her own, goddamn it, she stood up to The Beast, a real beast in human skin, and won.  She was powerful.  She was smart.  And she did not have to take John’s bullshit either!

She moved only for Aunt Caroline.  John could rot in Hell with his facade of avuncular worry.  What good did he ever do for her?  When she trusted him while on their family hunting trips with her dad, he took horrific advantage of a trust bestowed upon him by a very little girl.  Too young to understand, she was coerced into playing his sick games with threats that he would tell her dad she wasn’t being nice.  There had been no other choice for her.  She didn’t want to get in trouble with her dad.  Nor did she want to disappoint him.  She adored her father and the thought of him being mad at her broke her heart.  So she complied and did things unimaginable to anyone with an inkling of decency.

 _Parents,_ she thought with venom, _should not teach their daughters to be nice; teach them to be_ smart _.  Teach them how to handle a predator, even at a tender age, or their innocence will be stripped away with their clothes and their impressions of others warped forever._

For that reason she’d progressively borne a grudge against her dad.  It had been his paternal responsibility and she was betrayed by his neglect to carry it out.  Yes, it would have been awkward for a widower to explain sex and, worse, bad men like his own brother, to a little girl, but it would have saved Casey from the outlandish abuse.  It was still his job as a parent to warn and protect her, his _obligation_ of which he committed a great disservice by not doing.  Resentment was typical backlash, she reasoned, for him not opening his eyes to what was happening right in front of him.  How he could not _see_?

The reason must’ve been in their history.  Being the only two children her grandparents had, John and her father had always been close throughout their entire lives.  Never a pair embroiled in sibling rivalry, they were instead inseparable best friends.  If one took up a hobby, the other did too, which was how they both got involved with hunting.  Against the archetype of his slight build and bookish appearance, it was her dad who first was the seasoned outdoorsman.  John was the follower and learned everything he knew about hunting and tracking from his big brother.  Then when she was old enough, she was included on the family bonding, her dad imparting all his outdoorsman knowledge and survival skills on her as well.

If only _she_ had shared _her_ particular knowledge with _him_!  But the bond of brotherhood taunted her like a mocking devil.  Could a paternal bond break through a brotherly bond?  Society wants us to believe so but Casey knew that at times even the bond between mother and child, supposedly the strongest bond in existence, couldn’t withstand the test of a man molesting the daughter.  Was he _truly_ so willfully blind that he did not have the remotest idea of the unquestionable monster John was?  _Damn_ him!  She was just a little girl who didn’t want to lose the love of her father!

That terror of losing his love was still so profoundly ingrained in her that despite having available help directly in front of her in the police officer, she still chose silence.  Telling would betray her dad in a way she could not define.  A pause before the officer was meant to communicate the message through her eyes.  _Help me!_   _You’re giving me back to a worse monster than Kevin Crumb!_   The woman, trained to see silent cues, failed to see as much as her father had and Casey wondered what evil glamour her uncle held over everyone.  Was it the big, jolly smile he presented others with?  The amiable disposition?  The loveable Papa Bear demeanor his burly stature imposed?  It was all a masquerade and everyone was his fool.

Though she still looked at the officer, she addressed John:  “I think I should go to the hospital.”

John grimaced.  “Didn’t EMS check you out?”

Again, to John but focused on the still incognizant officer, “He tore my leg up pretty bad.  I’m going to need a shot or something.  I think it’s a good idea if I go to the hospital.”

The beginnings of a protest formed on John’s tongue but died like an unsaid spell when the officer spoke up.

“If she feels like she needs to go to the ER, we should take her.  We recommend that she get a more thorough check-up.  It would help with the investigation if more tests were run.”

“Tests?”  Casey took immense gratification in watching John’s face blanch.

“Yes, the standard battery of tests for victims of violent crimes.”  Then to Casey:  “I thought you refused medical treatment other than to patch up your leg.”

“I came to my senses,” she answered.  “More evidence, the better my chances.”

John was ashen and Casey reveled in it.

“Smart girl.”

The officer placed a guiding hand upon Casey’s shoulder to return her to the ambulance until John stopped her.

“I’ll take her,” he insisted.

A wariness shadowed the officer’s countenance but John was a notorious smooth talker, a black magician who refused to be subdued by the light of truth.

“I feel like I need to make amends for not being there for her,” he lied.  “She’ll feel more comfortable around family.”

The officer took a few seconds to consider then relinquished with a nod and Casey’s hope deflated.

“Take her straight to the emergency room.  We’ll have the detectives meet you there.”

Unless he wanted to turn a suspicious eye on himself, John had no choice but to agree.  Casey found herself taken back into John’s custody with a menacing large paw on her shoulder that pushed her in the direction of the waiting car.  Although she went along with John’s order, her body stiffened at his touch and an unwanted memory came back to her.

 _You’re a woman now_ , he muttered to her as she huddled beneath the protective sheets after that first time, shaken by disbelief that he’d finally taken the last step in her complete defilement.  She hadn’t felt like a woman.  She felt like what he’d reduced her to:  a used piece of meat that existed for his sick pleasure.  If this was her introduction to womanhood it made her want to shower and scrub off several layers of skin.  She felt dirty, filthy.

After that first time, there was no stopping him from taking her whenever he wanted.  Every night for months while her aunt worked late at the clinic, he came into her room until the novelty wore off enough for him to decide once a week was sufficient to satisfy his appetite.  In those agonizing hours, she learned to distance her mind from her body.  She was not herself.  This was not happening to her.  She was elsewhere, anywhere, everywhere except there in her bed, getting desecrated by the man who was meant to take the role of father and protector.

When they reached the car with Casey’s limp supported by John’s arm, the distraught Caroline melted in relief when she saw her niece and rushed from the car to embrace her.

“Casey, oh my god!”  her aunt cried.  “Thank god you’re safe!”  She sniffled back tears against Casey’s neck.  “Thank god!”

John informed gruffly, “We’re taking her to the emergency room.”

Aunt Caroline pulled away and gawked at her husband.

“Why?  If they’re releasing her she’s OK.  Isn’t she?”

“I want to go,” Casey interjected.  “He bit the back of my leg like an animal.  He tried to _eat_ me.  Like he ate Claire and Marcia.  I can barely walk.”

Caroline appeared conflicted.

“He _tried to eat_ you?!  What the _hell_ exactly happened to you?”

Casey’s throat felt as if it had swollen shut like she was in anaphylactic shock, rendering her unable to answer so instead she just stared down at her feet.

“Come on,” John urged, eager to leave the vigilant eye of the cop lest his spell be broken.  “We’ll find out at the hospital when she talks to the detectives.”

Their ride was roughened by a torturous stillness that smothered the car, each passenger battling some personal demon.  John was afraid that any word or action from him would be incriminating and that Casey would expose his secret unnatural wickedness.  Caroline was imagining all the horrors her niece suffered at the hand of a demented man and wondering how the usually quiet girl who kept to herself managed to be the sole survivor.  Casey was in a different sort of torment.  The wound in her calf throbbed with a sting dulled by thoughts which were not of John, the girls who’d been taken with her or even the abduction itself.

Her thoughts were with her abductor, Kevin Crumb, and where he might’ve gone.  The idea of him freely roaming the streets while trapped in his animalian personality The Beast made her break out in a cold sweat.  The things her own eyes had seen him do in that persona were nothing short of marvelous.  Could the police find a man who had become more animal than human?  Who, by his own admission, was _not_ human?  What would they do if they found him?  What _could_ they do?  Kill him?  Good luck with that. Cage him in a prison as poetic justice for a Beast who worked in a zoo disguised as a man?  Put him on display in a freak show asylum with an endless audience of doctors? 

Close range shots from a shot gun didn’t slow him down, never mind kill him.  He scaled walls like an insect and bent thick iron bars as if they were rubber props on a movie set.  As far as she knew, he was unstoppable, indestructible and the only reason she was alive was because he granted her the right to live.  Overwhelmed with emotion, she had collapsed in the cell she had sought refuge in, watching through a heavy stream of tears as his muscled backside vanished into the darkness. 

When they arrived at the hospital, they were rushed into the back away from prying eyes and sequestered into a private room, no questions asked or permitted.  Several waiting for triage complained but their protests fell on deaf ears.  Casey was high priority, high profile, whose arrival was preceded by notification from her would-be savior back at the zoo.  Once in the exam room, she changed into a gown, her injured leg elevated by a nurse.  Hoping to avoid conversation, she focused on the blood seeping through the bandages, blossoming over the white cloth with red reminiscent of spilled ink across a stark sheet of paper.

The doctor thankfully came in as soon as she was ready, anxious to see first hand what damage the infamous miracle Crumb was capable of inflicting.  The wound smarted when he gently pried the bandage off, she gasped and clutched the mattress when the air stung the raw, exposed flesh.

“You said he _bit_ you?”  the doctor inquired.

“Yeah,” she answered, short and sweet, not wanting to deal with specifics at the moment.

The doctor drew closer, examining with an intensity that caused her discomfort.

“Are you _sure_?”

“Positive.”

“This _wasn’t_ done by an animal?  You _were_ found in a zoo…”

“It was him.”

The doctor’s doubt went unconcealed.

“I’m sorry.  It’s just that these wounds are not conducive to anything that a human can do.”

The diagnosis roused Caroline who, remembering what Casey told her earlier, leaned forward in her chair.

“What do you mean?” her aunt questioned.

“The tooth imprints aren’t human.  They _are_ of a large apex predator that I have to further examine to identify but I can tell at first glance it’s definitely not human.”

Caroline passed a disbelieving glance to Casey who returned it with an _I told you so_ air.

“You were right to come in,” the doctor said, “this wound needs stitches.  How long has it been since you had a tetanus shot?”

She shrugged, saying, “I don’t remember.”

“OK, we’ll get one for you, just to cover our bases.  Let me get you prepped.  I’ll be back in a few.”

The doctor left and Casey’s fight or flight instinct grew unbearable.  She wanted to leave, get tonight over with, and not answer more questions about what happened and the man who did it to her.  Already a suffocating tension permeated the room with John noticeably eyeing her in warning.  _You better not!_   he silently cautioned.  _Don’t even think about it!_

On any given day before this, his scare tactics would’ve proven effective.  But this time was different because Casey glared back with insolence.   _I’m not afraid of you!_

And she vehemently meant it.

Of course, Caroline was too fascinated with her wound and the doctor’s detailed explanation of how he knew it was impossible to be have been made by a man to notice the hostility between niece and uncle.  Casey surmised that Caroline wasn’t as interested in her leg as she appeared to be, that it was a convenient distraction from what was really happening.

_Stop being his fool, Aunt Caroline!  Open your eyes!  Please pay attention!_

The doctor returned, administered the tetanus shot and was finishing the stitches when the pair of detectives appeared.  Her eyes, bereft of any emotion other than scathing challenge, crawled across the bed to land on John when they walked in.  He knew what she was thinking and his eyes hardened with a deeper malice.  Yet when he noted the fiery defiance burning back at him in her eyes, he shifted in his chair, pretending nothing was wrong.  With the detectives in the room, he needed to act presentable, be on his utmost behavior.

The detectives, polished figures each of ebony and ivory, were both young, gorgeous and looking as if they were models for a film poster.  Casey wondered how long they’d been detectives and what the worst thing they’d ever seen was.  Would they be prepared to see the worst thing _she’d_ ever seen?  She didn’t think they would be.

“Casey Cooke?”  The black one addressed.  “I’m Detective Noah Keaton.  This is Detective Jacob Nikovsky.”

Nikovsky nodded to Caroline and John; Caroline offered a weak smile and John a disheartened hello.

“We’re here to get your statement regarding the incident involving the suspect Kevin Crumb.”

Keaton recited the name like a question and Casey verified with a nod.

“You were abducted from the mall after a birthday party for Claire Dubois, we’ve established that from her father who said he was putting gifts in the trunk of the car when he was approached by Crumb.  He stated that Crumb sprayed him in the face with some kind of chemical that made him lose consciousness.  Can you tell us what happened after the suspect entered the car?”

Hollow in voice when she spoke, she disassociated from the world as she wove the fantastic tale that held the room captive.  With as much clarity as memory allowed, she recounted the details, realizing with surprise for the first time that despite her presence and close proximity to him, Dennis had not initially rendered her unconscious until she took measures to escape.  His original plan included only Claire and Marcia; she was a spare he could have eliminated straight away.  Like most men, he’d underestimated her and in the end it was she who thwarted his plan.

 _He didn’t believe I was a threat_ , she thought half in amusement, half in bitterness.

Telling the part of how Dennis, the personality Crumb assumed for the kidnapping, satisfied his lust for young girls by using his obsessive-compulsive disorder and germaphobia to bully them out of articles of their clothing piece by piece, she again raised her eyes to John so fiercely that he, intimidated, dropped his gaze to his lap.  _She_ had power over _him_ at long last and he squirmed in knowing.  But her attention drew back to the detective across from her and once again she was matter-of-fact and neutral.

She’d deal with John another time on her own.

When her story finished, a strained, taciturn aura loomed in the room.  Finally, one of the detectives found words and everyone seemed to sigh relief that the heaviness was lifted.

“He crawled up a wall with bare hands and feet,” Nikovsky reiterated slowly as if it was a lie that would be made true if repeated.  “And bent the iron bars of a cage they put wild animals in with his bare hands.”

“I know it sounds unreal,” Casey agreed.  “But that’s the way it happened.  You have no idea what you’re up against.  He’s very powerful….and dangerous.”

Keaton and Nikovsky glanced at each other, trying to decide how best to approach the delicate matter.

It was Keaton who spoke this time, decidedly the one with the softer edge:  “The mind is its own place, Miss Cooke.  Nietzsche said that somewhere, didn’t he?”

“It was Milton,” corrected Nikovsky.

Slightly annoyed, Keaton dismissed, “Nikovsky’s the bookworm, you’ll have to excuse him.  My point is still valid.  People have been known to perform miraculous physical feats when under extreme duress.”

“Like the mother who lifted the back end of a car off her child’s leg.”

“Exactly.”

“This man wasn’t desperate or under duress.  He’s fucking crazy.”

“Casey!”  Caroline admonished.

Whether her aunt’s reprimand was for the curse word or the derogatory word that came after Casey did not know but she wanted Caroline to understand she meant every word.

“You weren’t there,” she snapped softly at her aunt.  “You didn’t see.  You don’t _know_.”  Then back at Keaton:  “It was like he was a super villain in a comic book.”

“I doubt you have need to worry, Miss Cooke.  If your aim was true with that shotgun then we’re looking for a wounded man who crawled off to die.  You can relax.  Your heroes are here now.”

They evidently missed the part where she said he _walked_ away unfazed after being shot point blank in the chest with a shotgun.  There would not be a corpse but there would be a Beast waiting for them.  They weren’t going to suspend their beliefs to trust her account so she remained silent, it was her right.  She did all she could do to help them.  The detective meant to reassure her but she knew the futility of anything they could do against the likes of Crumb and less than that against The Beast.  They were going to get themselves killed but other than explaining what they were up against there was no other way to warn them.  They needed to bear witness to him themselves to believe.

“We’ll keep in touch with any updates,” Nikovsky added.  “Do you feel as if you might still be in any danger?  That maybe this guy is going to be searching for you?”

She shook her head, deep in thought, remembering.

“No.  He won’t bother me again.”

_Rejoice!_

“Are you certain?  An unstable mind is unpredictable.  He spared you once but maybe he’s saving you for another time.  It’s happened before.  They get some sick kick if a victim was strong enough to outlast or outsmart them.  They like to come back and retest their wits against their survivors in a hunt, to prove themselves and the second time is usually worse than the first.  We can post an officer outside your house until we find this guy.”

_The Broken are the more evolved…._

“I doubt I’ll ever see him again.”

Never crossing paths with Crumb again put a dull ache deep inside the pit of her stomach that she didn’t understand but tried to ignore.

Keaton handed her a card with his contact information, saying, “Take this, just in case.”

She accepted it but said nothing more.

“If you happen to see or hear anything,” he continued to John and Caroline, handing John a card too.  “Don’t hesitate, night or day.  Finding him is our platinum priority before he kills anyone else.”

Her aunt and uncle thanked the men before they left, crossing paths with the doctor who was re-entering clutching a piece of square paper that he handed to Caroline.

‘This is a topical antibiotic to put on the stitches twice a day.  Once in the morning then again at night,” he advised, looking at Casey.  “Have a speedy recovery, and I mean that in _every_ way.”  Then to her guardians:  “We’ll be running tests to collect evidence next so if you follow me I’ll take you to the waiting area.”

There were two mixed reactions to the knowledge that she would be alone and taking a rape kit specifically.  Caroline was afraid for her as proven by the wide eyed, slack jawed expression on her otherwise lovely face as she was ushered from the room, looking over her shoulder at Casey while saying some unknown encouragement.  John’s jaw was cinched so tight that it was a wonder how he wasn’t breaking his teeth, his face crimson and stony on his way out.  He didn’t bother to look back or offer encouraging words to her.  He was more terrified than Caroline but for a very different reason.

The rape kit was nearly as degrading as John’s hands.  Eternity passed as they collected samples and evidence in ways that she could never think of.  The  thoroughness left her naked and violated in a new way no less disturbing.  Crumb would be safe from this test but she prayed that somehow, some way, they would be able to find evidence to nail John with.  She was given a pregnancy test, had blood drawn, peed in a cup, took a CT scan, and a series of other tests that was each fresh violation in individual ways.  The MRI took the longest and she nearly fell asleep; too tired to move, she was a technician’s dream.

After the ordeal ended and she was dressed in a nurse’s donated clothing, she expected she was going to die from burnout.  Right now, even the hell promised at John’s house meant being out of the sight of scrutiny, even if it was a temporary reprieve.  Casey was tired of the attention and questions; all she wanted to do was hide in her room and hate herself for everything she had not been brave enough to do since her return.  Out of sight, out of mind was what she hoped for.  For a while at least.

“Ready to go home, sweetie?”  Caroline asked, smoothing her hair back as if she was a little girl.

“Yeah,” she muttered then slid down from the examination table.  “Let’s go.”

Leaving the hospital was a chore.  Every eye was on her, hospital staff and visitors alike, every one questioning her without words about her ordeal with the enigmatic Kevin Crumb.  Already news spread like a California wildfire about the man with twenty-four distinct personalities in one body, testimony from each television in every room they passed that had one on.  Yet the attention in the hallways was nothing in comparison for the real problem.  Arrival in the lobby abruptly halted their exit when they saw the throng of reporters waiting, lurking outside.

“Keep your head down, Casey,” Caroline instructed, a tremor in her voice.

John pioneered to cut the path with Caroline taking the rear and Casey between them, the hood of her hoodie pulled up and her head bowed down, guided by a close proximity to her guardians.  Doing so was loathsome but, she ghosted against John’s back as close as possible out of necessity while they trudged through the mob of journalists shouting questions, photographers flashing photos, television cameras aimed directly at her and the single line of courageous police officers trying their damnedest to restrain them all while the Cookes made their hasty escape.

Casey felt too much like Lindsay Lohan dashing out of a courthouse for her own liking.  The blinding flashes from the cameras were dizzying strobe lights, the simultaneous shouting of a myriad of questions forming one deafening, droning cacophony of a voice, the crush of bodies a panicked rush to an exit during a fire.  She was desperate to get through to a safe, dark space.

After several long minutes of toiling and with the help of the dauntless officers performing crowd control, they finally made it to their car in the emergency room parking lot.  The reporters who were in the back found themselves the front line of a mad dash to head them off but John’s defensive driving slowly accelerated the vehicle through their stubborn numbers until they gave way.  Casey kept her head low, not looking up when a few of the audacious reporters slapped on the nearest window.  Once the car broke free, John opted to take a detour home, winding through streets well out of the way from their house until, satisfied none of the media pests were following, he finally pulled into their driveway.

“All of that was probably for nothing,” he admitted, “but maybe we can make it inside before they Google our address.”

Casey was the first one out, taking flight to the front door with Caroline rushing behind, demanding that she wait.  She didn’t but went directly to the front door, letting herself in before her aunt and subsequently her uncle caught up to her.  Ignoring John’s bellow to stay with them, she stormed upstairs and straight to the bathroom, locking the door behind her.

The reflection in the mirror before her showed a person that was nearly unrecognizable in the physical sense:  battered, bruised, disheveled, slightly older in appearance.  Dirty and wary, she was forever changed.  But she still knew who stared back at her very well.  There were no mysteries.  Everything about that young woman was known:  all of her loves and hates, her abilities and limits.  She knew that she was a slender five foot seven with long brown hair, full lips, large brown eyes, high cheekbones, milky complexion.

Everyone has three faces:  the one you see yourself, the one others see and the one you truly are.  But what did Kevin Crumb see when he looked in the mirror through the eyes of each personality?  Did each one see completely different people?  Were they different only in their mind’s eye but still saw Kevin’s face?  Or did their mind project an image of what they imagined themselves to look like and that was how they saw themselves and each other in the physical world?  Did Patricia and Jade see female faces and feel displaced in a body with all the wrong anatomy? 

She stroked the curves of her face’s reflection and was grateful that she was strong enough to stay whole, to remain herself throughout her nightmarish life.  She was who she knew she was, nobody else.  The sum of the whole is greater than its parts, as Crumb’s Beast learned the hard way tonight.

She suddenly felt empowered by her own super ability of inner fortitude.  But she still looked like shit.  An effort to freshen up to feel slightly better was probably a good idea if she was planning to sit and eat at the table.  Running water through the tap until it was freezing cold, she cupped some in her hands and rinsed it over her face.  It was a good, clean luxury she hadn’t had in days despite Dennis’ best efforts to provide it.  Showering in confinement accomplished little since she couldn’t change into clean clothes.  More than ever she was desperate to change her underwear.  A quick routine gauntlet in effort to smell better was carried out:  applying deodorant, brushing her teeth, peeling off her shoes and socks so she wouldn’t reek like a trash heap at the table.

Before she actually exerted herself with a hop in the shower, she wanted to replenish a fraction of strength by eating dinner.  She left the bathroom in a stealthy retreat to the cool dark of her room, afraid to make a sound that would draw attention to her from the people downstairs.  That was an aftermath of her experience, the need to be imperceptible, to stay out of sight as her father taught her to do when hunting.  Ironic how that rule applied to both predator and prey.

The first bullet point on her agenda now was clean clothes.  She didn’t care what they were as long as they were clean.  Taking from drawer to drawer, she picked all black to match her mood and her intent.  Black was powerful.  Black was sexy.  She piled the clothes on the bed and sat beside them to think when there was a gentle knock on her door.

“May I come in?”  Caroline asked, tentative and nervous.  

Casey shrugged and retorted, “It’s a free country.”

Caroline entered, as timid as a rabbit and fearful of an unfathomable truth she was there to ask details on.  Yet she sat on the bed next to her and smiled, ready to face whatever it may have been.

“I’m so relieved you’re home,” Caroline sighed.  “You have no idea how worried we were…”

Casey cut her off with, “Not him.”

Befuddled, Caroline grimaced and refuted, “Casey, he was up at night, every night, worried sick, organizing search efforts, sitting in your room thinking about what to do next.”

“I’m sure he was.”

“We can’t possibly imagine what you went through.  We can’t even pretend we do.  Taken, held prisoner by that lunatic…”  She stopped, not wanting to say anything more but knowing she must.  “Casey….  Did that man….”

 _And here it comes_ , thought Casey, bracing herself.

“Did he….  Rape you?”

Casey couldn’t help but scoff.

“After all the things I’ve said about him, all the things he can do, all the things he’d said.  _That’s_ what you want to know?”

Caroline looked even more puzzled.

“I heard _that_ story,” her aunt said.  “I want the story _behind_ the story.  The story you _didn’t_ tell.  Why did he just walk away and let you live after murdering and _eating_ your friends?”

“They _weren’t_ my _friends_.”

Caroline ignored her and pursued, “What did he mean when he told you ‘The Broken are the more evolved’?”

An uneasy silence filled the room as Casey struggled not to tell Caroline what she waited to hear.  The only difference was that the villain in that ugly story had nothing to do with the man she expected to hear it about.

“He didn’t touch me,” she repeated strongly.  “I told you.  He couldn’t.  The other personality wouldn’t let him.”

“Yes, I know.  But this guy seemed awful interested in getting your clothes off.”

What she wanted to respond with:  _Like your husband.  The only difference is at least Dennis respected a simple no to a degree._ What she ended up saying:  “He didn’t.  He had to follow his orders.  One of those orders was he wasn’t allowed to touch us.  Believe me.”

Another long, uncomfortable pause settled between them, Caroline struggling to comprehend.  Finally, it seemed as if either she accepted that her niece was untouched by a madman or she wasn’t going to get the truth and nodded.

“I’m making your favorite.  Bacon mac and cheese.  Food to heal your soul.  You’ll need a lot of your favorite things to help you heal.”

Casey relented and decided to give her aunt a break.

“I need sleep.  And a shower.  I smell like something dead.”

Caroline laughed and Casey returned it with a weak smile.

“Maybe your stink is what kept the bad man away.”

A montage of images of the germaphobe with his face mask, Yellow Rag and cleaning supplies played through her mind.

“It probably did,” she admitted forthright.

“Then stink is given too much of a bad rap.  Come on, I’m sure the food is waiting.”

_The food is waiting…._

Casey shuddered and gasped involuntarily, noticed by Caroline.

“What is it?”

Only last night those words hadn’t meant bacon mac and cheese; they meant her, Claire and Marcia.  While she had been the lucky one, she remembered with vivid clarity the mutilated remains of Marcia and walking in on Claire being devoured by The Beast.  She placed a hand over her queasy stomach and said, “I’m not very hungry.”

Caroline frowned.  “But it’s your favorite.  I made it to make you feel better and so you could nourish your body.  He couldn’t have been feeding you well, if at all.”

Casey’s face paled and wondered if she had turned green.  Either way she wanted to vomit thinking about how Crumb had torn into Claire’s body with his teeth, feasting on her raw, young flesh and how it was her blood on his mouth when he came to kill her too. 

“Can you _try_ to eat?”  her aunt nagged.  “Even if it’s a small portion?”

“I’ll try.  I can’t promise.”

“Fair enough.  Let’s eat while it’s hot.  Your shower can wait.  We’ll forgive your stink this one time.  It did a good deed for you.”

Casey smiled faintly and stood with her aunt then followed her downstairs into the dining room where John was placing the pan of pasta in the center of the table.  She wondered if her life-saving stench would repel John too.

“Everything all right?”  he asked and Casey flinched when she heard his voice.

“Right as rain,” replied Caroline.  “However right rain is.”

“I hope you’re hungry, Casey Bear.  It’s extra cheesy.  Food to heal the soul.”

Other than Casey’s poisonous evil eye at John for his use of her aunt’s words, they sat down without incident and served themselves.  They tried their best to make small talk with her and around her, never mentioning anything of her captivity in favor of getting things back to normal, whatever normal was to them.  Normal wasn’t a good thing in her case.  John’s idea of normal nauseated her more than the thought of The Beast’s cannibalistic meal did.

Whatever anyone did, she was never going to be the same.  She was different now yet not in the way everyone expected her to be.  Time with Crumb did not ruin her, it had empowered her.  She half listened, aimlessly pushing the pasta around in the steaming bowl, occasionally spearing some on the fork to be shoved into her mouth.  It was her favorite meal ever since she was a little girl, something to look forward to when cooked, so she knew very well what bacon mac and cheese tasted like, what its consistency was.  The hard crunch and salty chewiness of the crisp bacon, the soft cheesiness of the pasta.  Yet all she could taste tonight was Patricia’s fucking egg salad.

After twenty minutes of struggling to fake an appetite, she finally shoved the bowl of half-finished food away, asking to be excused.  Aunt Caroline, with a sympathetic smile, softly said, “Of course.”

Casey couldn’t get upstairs and out of sight fast enough.  Heading straight for her room, she grabbed the change of clothes she left on the bed.  Not her pajamas, despite the fact that the sky was growing dark, but the full set of fresh clothes:  a black T-shirt and black jeans, and fuck it, black underwear to match.  With the bundle in her arms, she again exited her room to go back up the hallway and into the bathroom, shutting the door softly between herself and the muffled conversation of her guardians downstairs, presumably still at the dining table.

The snick of the lock in place offered solace of being out of the way, in her own secluded world that included no one else.  The shower was hot, cleansing, and she sat down in the stall to let the grime run off her and down the drain.  The tiles were shockingly cold against her ass but were an ideal contrast to the hot water raining down on her.  The stitched tooth marks carved down her calf stung when met by the scalding water as she drew her knees up to her chin.  She allowed herself a slight wince but nothing more.  She made no other fuss or complaint; she simply endured.

 _The pain feels good_ , she assured herself.  _It lets me know I’m still alive, still human_.

A human caught between monsters.

Or one monster, one Beast.

Taking a few extra moments to collect herself, she reviewed her life and the events of the past week.  Her bruised and wounded body turned the pulsing water from the showerhead into fists hammering upon her.  Now that things were slowing down, fatigue was creeping in and she didn’t want to move.  The water was equal parts agony and ecstasy, like the press of strong fingers into sore, stiff muscles.  Like how _he_ felt when he touched her.

 _Why do you act like you’re not one of us?_   Claire had demanded of her in their cell in the first hours of being taken.

 _Because I’m_ not _one of you_ , Casey had wanted to answer.  Instead she kept her cool and left the question unanswered to think through the situation rather than give Claire a rise.  She had learned the hard way how to pick her battles long before her entrapment with Crumb.

Yet she had been spared by The Beast because he recognized she wasn’t one of them. 

_He knew…._

And he also knew that Claire and Marcia was everything he was against.  Pampered, pretty, well-off, good families, pillars of the community.  They never wanted for anything.  Both were popular and well-liked, excelled in school, well-rounded students, worked part-time jobs, parents alive and still married, living in suburban bliss and ignorance.  He was right.  They were asleep.  They never had any real troubles in their whole brief lives.  They didn’t know the type of pain and torment that kept you up at night making you hate yourself until you wished you were dead, that made you slice into your own body in a symbolic attempt to cut the hurt out of your soul and the imprinted sensation of an unwanted touch on your skin.

That shattered your mind into fragments because you couldn’t cope any other way.

She snapped out of her self-righteous but justifiable rage and, standing, poured a generous portion of lavender body wash into her palm that was then smoothed over every inch of her aching body, special care was paid in the pits and crotch area, all the while imagining her hands were not her own.  Strong, powerful, purposeful fingers kneading into her body, bringing sweet relief and, when lowered, sweeter release.

Her knees buckled as she moaned and emerged from her unwanted fantasy, disgusted and horrified with herself.  What the fuck was wrong with her?  Blame once again went to a severely traumatized, frazzled brain for straying onto unthinkable paths.  It was the only explanation.  Turning off the water, she hurried from the stall, toweled herself off and dressed in the clean clothes just to be rid of the sight of her own disfigured nudity with a fusion of shame and astonishment for what she’d wanted done to it.

She shut the door behind another hasty retreat to her room where she snapped off the lights and crawled into bed fully clothed, curling up into the fetal position as if reverting to an innocent, unremembered state would banish the newly surfaced and obscene desire.  Ever since she moved in with her aunt and uncle, she acquired the habit of secretly cutting herself to relieve the anguished helplessness of her circumstances.  Self-torture was the one thing she could control, inflicted on her body because she felt she deserved it for being so goddamn stupid.  Presently, she felt she deserved it more than ever for what had just happened in the bathroom.

Fuck.  What was one more regret in a long procession of them?  She could have run away but her previous tries were half-hearted and futile because she had nowhere to go and nobody to go to.  Many opportunities to alert the authorities, including this very night, were missed.  She could have told her father when it all started but feared breaking his heart though she knew his heart was broken now if he watched over her.  Suicide would’ve been the ultimate escape because death was preferable to consistent debasement against her will but some sick self-preservation instinct stayed her hand.  There always was a litany of excuses and she was sick of it.  Instead she stayed, suffered, endured and kept quiet like a nice girl.  Like the nice girl her father wanted her to be.  Though he was years in his grave, she remained torn between the duty of a daughter and the responsibility to do the right thing, still unable to bring herself to disappoint her father.  Not then when his heart still beat, not now in his memory.  So she became a disappointment to herself and a cutter, trapped with no other alternative to relieve the pain.

On the bottom line she was at fault for its continuation so her self-abuse escalated.  Every time John touched her she found absolution at a razor’s edge.  His abuse wasn’t enough.  After he finished, she faked sleep in wait for him to leave with baited breath.  When he finally rolled out of her bed and the session was over, she always immediately reached for the razor hidden in a small plastic black box between the mattress and the wall then carved away the memory anywhere he placed his hands, mouth or filthy, ugly cock.  There was also another incentive to the act.  If she made herself hideous, she thought, then maybe he wouldn’t be attracted to her any more.  Maybe he would eventually leave her alone.

As of yet he never did.  He rebuked her and ordered her not do it anymore, which meant she cut more frequent wounds in defiance.  How could he stop her?  He couldn't say anything to Caroline or anyone else without risk of being questioned.  Casey knew she had him backed in a corner for the first time since he began abusing her.  He was as helpless to her self-mutilation as she was to his rape.

Beauty, however, was in the eye of the beholder.  What the monster found ugly, The Beast found beautiful.  Every flaw and imperfection led him to spare her even as Claire and Marcia, representatives of the ideal life she coveted, were his sacrificial lambs.  Meat for The Beast.  He saw strength in her where everyone else saw weakness, glue where everyone saw cracks in her sanity, resilience and adaptability where damage and failure clouded everyone else’s vision.  He admired her, counted her as one of his own:  someone forged in a furnace of pain, just like he had been.  Refuse in the world’s eyes, she was pure in his.

_The Broken are the more evolved…._

In one indelible instant when The Beast noticed the myriad of scars marring her young body, sheer joy transformed him from homicidal to affectionate.  That moment was revisited in a loop over and over again tonight for it was then when they had known each other for who they truly were.  In that moment of genuine tenderness, each recognized a kindred spirit in the other, the knowledge conveyed between them in this wordless understanding, a whispering between their souls that softened the rage of his insanity to near worship of her.  The Broken.  The Pure. 

That compassion shown to her by a murderous hellion born from the fractured mind of a sick man was the first pivotal action that formed the decision she made.  Not since her dad died had anyone looked at her in such a way, like she was important.  Accustomed to rejection, she broke down and wept when she realized the meaning behind his release of her.  An incontestable bond formed between them in that moment.  It was also in that moment she herself had noted a dreadful, unforeseen truth:

The Beast was the only one who fully understood her.  He had seen beyond the scars and straight through to the core of her soul.  He’d seen the torment, the misunderstandings, the social stigma of abuse, the loneliness of never fitting in with those who were better, the swollen eyes from tears, the bruised back of suffering and found her extraordinary.  That important moment of profound meaning and solemn acceptance meant more to her than life itself and she knew she could not give that up.  She’d waited too long throughout her sixteen years for someone to reach out to her in the way he had.

She’d let herself down every day since her father died because she wasn’t brave enough to change anything for the better.  Now was the time to be brave.  Waiting for the _precise_ time to take action after the final decision was the worst part.  As the clock near her bed crawled through the hours like a dying person across a desert, she fidgeted in anticipation.  Nevertheless, she forced herself to relax, the anxiety feeling like ants beneath her skin.

Two hours later, waking with a jolt from the nap she did not mean to take, she found the house dark and silent.  That was her cue.  Springing from bed, she crossed the room with long strides and fetched the backpack she used to take on hunting trips from the back of the closet.  With great haste, she emptied its contents onto the floor then proceeded to cram it with essentials:  more clothing of warmer choice, hairbrush, deodorant, lotion, toothbrush and toothpaste, four bottles of water, several granola bars and packages of trail mix, five hundred dollars in cash she had saved from her summer jobs over the last two years, a book of matches, a flashlight, her phone charger, a pen and sketchpad and a hunting knife.

An idea struck her as she zipped up her supplies.  Going back to the bed, she reached underneath and retrieved the cutter kit.  She snapped it open and removed a few items:  iodine, bandages, a few tissues with browned drops of blood and the sacred box cutter itself, the tarnished spots on the blade not rust at all but blood she had never cleaned in hope that she would get infection and die from.  These items she arranged around the open box on her bed so there was no mistaking their purpose.

She frantically searched for another pad of paper and pencil, lamenting that she had just packed some away only to have this idea in hindsight.  Luckily, she was a sometime artist and tried to keep pen and paper on hand in case the muse decided to kiss her.  What she searched for was at the bottom of her second drawer.  On a leaf of paper, she scribbled a single quick sentence:

_The man who touched me was not Kevin Crumb._

Tucking the note folded under the box cutter, she released an immense burden in the form of a deep sigh and rushed to the window, taking one final glance back at the story told across her bed.  She wouldn’t need the cutter kit anymore.  Someone understood her and his single act of kindness was impervious against several acts of punishment.  She lifted the window up, tossed her supplies out into the yard, ducked through and climbed down.  Once her feet planted firmly on the ground, she grabbed the bag and left behind the worst days of her life without looking back.

There was finally a place for her to go, someone to run to.  She only needed the knowledge and fortitude to get there.

The hunt was on.


	2. II.  What He Taught Her

 

**II. What He Taught Her**

_“You need to have an eye for detail,” her dad explained as they hunkered down to examine the ground.  “You have to check for any sign of an animal’s passing.  It isn’t just about finding paw prints.  Look for broken or bent twigs and grass, see which way the damage points.  Blood if the animal is wounded.  Spoor.”  He peered at her, a teacher popping a quiz.  “You know what spoor is, don’t you?”_

_Casey giggled.  “Poop!”  she replied with the gleeful zest only a child could muster when fecal matter is mentioned._

_“That’s right.  Animals poop a lot, especially when they’re scared.  They pee a lot, too, for the same reason.  It’s one of the ways they scare off their predators or mark their territory.  Look for any traces of fur or hair that gets caught on branches as they move through.  From that you can tell what you’re tracking just like you can by looking at prints.  You see, Casey, an animal will always tell on itself.  All you need to do is pay close attention to the signs.”_

****

John’s house was roughly forty-five miles from Philadelphia on the outskirts of King of Prussia, much too far for her to walk in the short amount of time she had to find him.  Time was essential and anything could happen between now and a second passed.  There was no choice left but for her to spend money on transportation.  Walking as fast as she could to a rare twenty-four hour Dunkin Donuts a few blocks from the house, she called a taxi to pick her up.  If the driver hurried, she could be on the last Greyhound out to Philadelphia within a half hour.

The aroma of doughnuts reminded her that she hadn’t eaten.  She bought a coffee roll, one of the few things still left from the day, with a medium coffee then sat to impatiently wait.  The workers were quiet, whispering between themselves and making her feel unwelcome had no right to impose herself upon them at this hour despite her purchase.  She ignored them by making necessary arrangements on her phone.  First, she shut off the GPS so she couldn’t be tracked.  Then she purchased her bus ticket, relieved to see she had a little more time than originally expected.  The bus was estimated to arrive in Philly forty-five minutes after departure from King of Prussia.  She paid her fare, downloaded the e-ticket, placed her phone on battery saver mode then put it away to conserve the battery as much as possible.

Limited on pastimes, she took the pen and sketchpad from her back pack and started a drawing.  The lines and curves, empty spaces and blackened marks all in the end yielded a surprising result.  An outline of The Beast embracing her from behind while she leaned back and up for a kiss spilled from her pen like a dirty secret exposed.  For a few seconds she stared blankly, unable to form a thought.  But when the thoughts came, the floodgate opened.

Was standing by the side of someone like The Beast what she truly wanted?  Would the expensive price of doing so be worth the eventual cost?  How the hell was this going to work between them?  She imagined herself on the run with him, living in dilapidated buildings, dingy motels or the sewer, always on the lookout and afraid.  The Hunter will become the hunted, chased by Keaton and Nikovsky who will wish they had chosen modeling careers once they crossed The Beast.  _They won’t be so pretty after_ that _encounter_ , she thought with a frown.  She’d witnessed first hand how The Beast didn’t mind mutilating himself to reach who he was after.  He was an animal with a myopic mind; her own wounded leg proved that.

She was adding more detail to her artwork, specifically blood dripping from the corner of The Beast’s mouth, when the door opened and a man stuck his head in.

“Did you call for a taxi, miss?”

“Yeah,” she answered, standing and shoving the sketchpad and pen back into her bag.  “I need to get to the bus station as soon as possible.”

He held the door open for her to exit, she tossing the remnants of the coffee in the trash on the way out.  Either the driver was either a rare gentleman or hoping for a large tip, but he opened the back door and offered his hand in chivalrous fashion to assist Casey up into the SUV’s back seat.  She declined and got in on her own but felt guilt for her behavior when he closed the door for her.  As she buckled her seat belt, she thought the car had a staleness that signified too many sweating bodies and not enough ventilation.

“Do you mind if I roll down the window for some air?”  she asked as the driver started the engine.

“Not at all, sweetheart, whatever makes you comfortable.”

She hit the button and inhaled deeply as air whooshed in.  During the drive, a current pop singer that was not part of Casey’s world and who she could not identify or bring herself to care about played over the radio.  She wanted two things:  to nestle down into the comfortable plush of the Greyhound’s seat to finish her drawing and to at last reunite with The Beast again.

Antsy about being confined in the backseat, she squirmed listlessly, tapping her toe to the music to distract herself and occupy her mind.  In actuality, the drive wasn’t long because there was no traffic but the twenty minutes it took to get from one point to the other was filled with maddening unease.  As soon as the station came into sight, she fumbled through her bag for bills to pay the fare which was thrown at the driver with a thank you before rushing from the taxi.

“Wait for me to stop the car!” the driver yelled in castigation to her retreating back.

She raced towards the curb where the bus driver stood checking the tickets of what few passengers were boarding.  Taking place at the back of the line, she slung her bag over her shoulder but it was so laden with supplies that she nearly tipped over.  When it was finally her turn, she showed the driver her ticket and immediately went to the back of the bus.

She plugged her phone into an outlet to keep the device as charged as possible while she was able then removed her sketchpad and pen and set to work on the drawing.  Adding in details to give it life, an idea formed to begin a comic strip for him that she could give as a gift.  Casey and The Beast:  Hunters of the Impure.  Since he was a personality locked in an eternal feral state, she wondered if he was capable of appreciating such a gift.  At least he’d be able to look at the pictures and understand. 

She visualized him curled around her, his head in her lap while she read to him and, when she reached to the end of her works in progress, she would make up the rest to keep him entertained.  Showing him the pictures and rubbing his scalp tenderly as he dozed off to her bedtime stories; the raging Beast docile and content like a kitten in her arms.  She couldn’t wait to be near him.  Could the goddamn bus go _any_ faster?

Three panels of her desired reunion with The Beast were sketched and detail was being filled in when the bus pulled into port at the station.  She couldn’t exit fast enough.  A row of taxis were lined up before her but she hesitated.  Was more money spent on transportation necessary?  She wasn’t familiar with Philadelphia streets and didn’t know which direction the zoo was in.

Beginning a hunt from the point of flight was crucial; it was only there where she could begin to follow in his steps.  It would be a waste of precious time if she were to guess where he may have fled since the possibilities were abundant and endless in such a large city.  Unlike New York City, Philadelphia shut down after a certain hour and was vacated this late.  A lone sixteen-year-old female walking streets at two in the morning was unwise anywhere.  It invited trouble from anyone she encountered.

She needed to choose.  Now.  Biting her lip, she approached a driver who was smoking a cigarette outside his car.  Older than the King of Prussia driver, he appeared more seasoned as a driver in Philadelphia would expect to be.  He eyed her as she converged upon him, his hardened face softening.

“Excuse me,” she addressed.  “How far is the Philadelphia Zoo from here?”

“The zoo is closed,” he said simply, his tone flat.

“I know but I’m meeting someone over there.”

“A lot of police activity’s happening around the zoo now, miss.  Some psycho who worked there kidnapped three girls and ate two of them alive.  That psycho might still be lurkin’ around, I can’t have that on my conscience.”

Fuck.  Since when did others become conscientious about another’s wellbeing?  Now, apparently, when it was inconvenient for her.

“I’m meeting a friend,” she told her half-truth.  “Trust me, he’s not somebody this guy will want to mess with, cannibal or not.”

“I don’t know, kid.”

“How much does it cost to ease your conscience?”

This piqued the driver’s interest and her stomach ached with what he might have been thinking.  Because, of course, it would be fair game to take sexual favors from her but not to leave her at her destination.

“I meant cash,” she corrected with sternness.

“What else would you have meant?”  he retorted smartly.  “How much you got?”

She dropped her bag on the sidewalk and stooped to count out bills in discretion.

“How much would it normally be?”

“Maybe thirty-five.”

“I’ll double it.  Take me to the zoo.”

He eyed her for a while, wasting more valuable time and pissing her off, before negotiating, “Triple.”

Casey rolled her eyes and sighed.  “Fine.  Let’s go.”

Zipping her bag, she climbed in the car, noting that this driver was far less of a gentleman when he went around to let himself in.  She had no time for bullshit.  She needed to get to the zoo.  The ride was as different from the other as the driver was.  Casey loathed the music the King of Prussia driver played but at least it was music.  This guy was listening to a random news station, on the AM dial if the dull, muffled sound was any indication.  The car reeked like an ashtray; the driver either smoked in it when nobody was around or the car had been around longer than the no-smoking laws.  Her chest constricted in response but she issued no complaint.  Reaching the zoo was more important than the toxic air quality at the moment so she rolled down the window and made the best of it.

The city flew by as she watched, grateful that the streets here were virtually empty of traffic too, all the while searching vigilantly for the man she sought.  It was a full twenty-four hours since her rescue and he could be anywhere at this point.  The disheartening thought occurred that maybe he wasn’t even in Philadelphia anymore made her eyes brim with tears.  After all of this, _all of this_....to reach the end of the trail and discover that he hadn’t waited for her, was too heartbreaking to bear.

The bright side was if nothing waited for her at the end of the trail then a wave of change was already rippling through her life by telling Caroline about John.  Stronger, wiser, more determined, she was far from the Casey she once was.  The Casey from two weeks ago would still be in her bed, cowering beneath the blankets, praying for her uncle to keep his incestuous paws off her.  Escaping from John’s house was now more of a safety measure for him if not a new start for her.  After everything she’d been through, she knew if he ever crawled into bed with her after tonight she would have castrated him with the box cutter.

She gave thanks to The Beast for that.  It wasn’t necessarily that he made her strong but rather he taught her how strong she was by waking a sleeping giant within her.  No, she amended, not a sleeping giant, but another beast.  She wondered how far away he was and how many cops still lingered at the scene.  Maybe it wouldn’t be smart to drive to the front gates in an attention drawing taxi.

“How far are we?”  she inquired.

“Another five, ten minutes.  I’m sure your friend will still be there.”

Casey was glad he was sure because she wasn’t.  The dark of the back seat was used to unpack the hunting knife and conceal it in a sheath up the sleeve of her hoodie in preparation.  With empty streets around them, she wondered if the worst part was  needing to handle the sleazy driver she got stuck with.  With The Beast roaming somewhere out there and the knife at hand, she felt invincible.

“Can you drop me off at the first corner as soon as you see the zoo?  Not the front gates, just along the fence?”

“Whatever you desire, sweetheart.”

For being an asshole, the driver was not wrong.  Within minutes, she was on the outskirts of the zoo and halted the taxi, melting with relief.  Throwing the fare at the jerk and ignoring a snide, “Have a nice night, sweetheart”, she grabbed her bag and exited the car, slamming the door harder than she expected.  The driver called her a rude word and sped off, leaving her alone in the lull of the Philadelphia street.

A glance at the gated border of the zoo and a new burst of life excited her.  Energized, she half-limped, half-ran alongside the gates, stumbling and nearly toppling to the ground when she tripped over a raised section in the sidewalk.  Groaning, she pushed forward even harder when she found a closed gate which was obviously not the main visitor’s entrance.  Stopping, she peered through the bars and spied a little path that led to a stone building.

“Maintenance,” she said to herself, deep in thought.

Crumb was part of the maintenance crew for the zoo and maybe this was a crew-only entrance.  The gate was locked by large twin padlocks and securing chains that kept it shut.  Beyond the gates, there was movement and she ducked backward into the umbrage.  Police were still gathering evidence, as they likely would be throughout the night.  The thought of being seen by the police and followed to his new lair was unthinkable.  Utmost discretion must be practiced, for how could she live with herself if she was the foolish reason behind his capture.  To capture him might have meant his death and if that happened and she was responsible, she expected she’d slit her wrists to die in despair next to him.

She huffed, feeling exhaustion creep into her muscles again.  In honesty, she wasn’t certain if she could continue holding on like this.  She had no business being out here looking for him.  Maybe she bit off more than she could chew in doing so.  Chew.  Uh!  Her injury ached worse from the memory invoked by the word.  What would he do, she pondered, when he saw the work he left behind, the hurt he’d caused her?

From that, her overtired mind strayed into another fantasy before she could prevent it.  Sitting in a chair with him crouched before her, he propped her foot upon his shoulder and carefully unwound the gauze with a tenderness that was unexpected from a creature like him.  After it was unwrapped and the bandage tossed aside, he inspected the bite he had put there himself then peered at her with dark remorse swelling in the oceans of his eyes.

His intensity ensorcelled her into a speechless wait for his next move.  He did not disappoint.  With nothing said, he raised the wound to his lips.  She awaited him to plant a gentle kiss over the wound but should have known that a kiss was too human a gesture for a man whose bite was mistaken for that of an animal’s by a doctor. As The Beast he was purely animal and his actions matched the instincts of one.  With a conscientious tongue, he caressed the length of the bite, his saliva sending a stinging pain through her calf that made her wince.  His soft ministrations were not stopped; he cleansed the blood delicately from the wound like a cat.  No, like a lion.  The more he licked, the less it smarted until it didn’t hurt at all.  With gratitude, she stroked his head, petting him with returned affection.

After he finished, he gazed up at her once again and smiled a less eerie smile than the grin he gave her at the zoo.  “Mine,” he murmured, his voice deep and sensual.  She gulped then smiled while he placed his head in her lap.  She leaned down and kissed his forehead, thinking, _Mine too._

Her reverie was broken when the white noise of a cop’s walkie talkie pierced her thoughts.  Clearing her mind with a shake of her head, she refocused on the task at hand, hoping that once she found him, The Beast would be as tender and obedient as she imagined.  Time to find out.

Luckily entrance inside the zoo was unnecessary.  Cautious to stay out of sight, she opted to not turn on the flashlight but relied on her skilled eyes to find clues.  Here was where her hunting skills were a blessing.  The most obvious thing to search for was footprints.  When The Beast fled he was barefoot.  What other barefoot men ran away from the zoo only hours ago?  She sidled to the edge of the pavement where it met dirt and eventually grass.  It took seconds to see what she was searching for.

The print was solid and told he hadn’t run but instead walked, cocky and unaffected.  Why wouldn’t he be?  He was miraculous.  If close-range shots from a skilled hunter couldn’t keep him down, why should he fear anyone tracking him, human or dog?  It was logical that he was in control during the retreat because the other personalities trusted his animal instincts to guide them to safety.  Therefore, she would need to think like an animal too.

A single print formed in the dirt; the rest vanished in the cover of lush grass.  Now things would get tricky.

_He’s on the move…_

The print headed from the gate, revealing that he crossed the street.  Without hesitation and thankful there was no traffic, she crossed pavement and trolley tracks, to the median then beyond into the last rows of traffic in the opposite direction, coming out on a grassy, tree-filled area near the highway. 

The footprints were invisible but signs of his exodus were not.  Marked by crushed grass and overturned rocks, his escape was accented by flecks of light blood splatter.  So he _was_ injured!  Hope and disdain alike filled her.  What if his internal injuries were severe and he stopped somewhere to gather strength but died or was as good as dead?  She nearly sobbed with worry but it would serve her right to realize the truth too late!  She should have never let him walk away from her!

She shook her head to clear her negative thoughts.  No!  He was fine!  He was waiting for her at the end of the trail, like a warm hearth awaiting a weary soldier.  She watched him scale the walls of his home like an insect and bend bars as if they were twigs.  Chances were he was alive and healthier than she was.  Miraculous, glorious, evolved…

She shuddered at the thought of all that he was and swooned in the rapture of possibility.  Then once again remembering that she still needed to find him, she concentrated with all the effort of her overtired mind on picking up his trail but grew disgruntled when she realized she lost it when she lost herself.  Coming out on the other side of the little park, she found more blood on the sidewalk, small droplets that were too coincidental not to be his.

She proceeded with her head down, eyes poring over the pavement a few feet ahead, minding her own business, walking as fast as she could.  She was afraid if she looked up then that would be the precise time when someone else walked or drove by, worse if it was anyone she knew despite the distance from home and the ungodly hour because life was weird like that.  Eye contact was an excuse for unwanted interactions.

The loud peel of laughter from a distant night reveler reached her ears, urging her to walk a little faster, her head a bit more lowered, trying hard to be inconspicuous.  She’d fight if provoked but avoiding trouble was the best course of action in her state.  Her wound throbbed every time weight was put on the leg and every muscle in her body cried for the ungranted mercy of sleep.  The two-hour nap prior to her liberation from John’s abuse served to tease her wrecked body into complaining with every movement.  She couldn’t recall a time when she was ever more depleted.  Adrenalin tried to provide her with energy boosts but wasn’t doing a good job of it yet.

 _I just need to find him._ Then _I can rest._

The reveler’s voice rang out again in closer proximity then was joined by a second in echo.  Now she was concerned.  She doubted if she could fight an attacker off.  She needed to find Crumb and get off the streets as soon as possible.  _If_ it _was_ possible.

New negativity arose no thanks to her exhausted wandering mind trying to occupy itself to keep her awake and alert.  Her tiredness must be nothing compared to his.  The detectives Keaton and Nikovsky believed they’d find a corpse.  She knew they would find The Beast.  But what about a third option?  What if Crumb became overwrought by fatigue the way she was and in his weakened state he did die, not from the gunshots but of exposure?  Or if the cops managed to corner and take him into custody because he was weak?  Either way, she feared _something_ bad would happen to him before she reached him.  Unbearable was the thought of realizing what had walked away from her and then going through all this trouble to get it back only to discover it was taken from her by someone else while just out of grasp.

Casey remembered Hedwig’s remark that whenever he fell asleep one of the other personalities would sneak The Light away from him and seize temporary control.  There were limits to how much physical exertion a body could take, even if it was powered by an alternate personality or was superhuman.  At some point the worn host body would break down with sickness or, at the very least, shut down for sleep.  Even The Beast needed to sleep sometime and when he did, he’d be vulnerable.

 _He needs me!  I have to get to him!  I_ need _to!_

Prospect of losing him finally offered her a very needed rush of adrenalin and her pace revitalized.  But she walked for only a few minutes before it was spent and she nearly collapsed.  She’d been walking for a mere half hour and didn’t know how much longer _she_ could last.  She wasn’t impervious like The Beast but this journey was testing her mettle.  Pure willpower was all that held her up and she was impressed by her seemingly limitless endurance.  But she knew that, like The Beast’s strength, her stamina would eventually fade to nothing and she too would shut down and at a more rapid pace than him.

Checking to see if she was really alone, she trudged to a tree standing sentinel in someone’s yard and sat down with a wary huff.  God knew how much work was ahead of her tonight, all in the dark while unspeakably fatigued.  Well aware was she that she’d be prone to make mistakes she could not afford to make.  Propping herself up with perfect posture against the tree, she groaned and closed her eyes, feeling what little energy she had sapping from her in delicious immobility.

While she rested, her mind opened up to one of those weird cathartic moments where she thought of nothing yet everything concurrently.  Nikovsky warned that sometimes victims were released to be saved for sport later.  She didn’t believe that was The Beast’s plan.  It didn’t make sense, not after the discerning way he looked at her, his declaration to her, the solemn moment of understanding they shared.

_Rejoice!  The Broken are the more evolved…._

No truer words were ever spoken and only one of The Broken could comprehend and agree.

Yet wild animals in captivity often turned on their owners.  It was always a possibility, whether she wanted to believe it or not.  Women fell victim to ignored instincts and red flags all the time, even strong ones.  For all she knew, The Beast was stalking her now.  The idea made her feel like a guileless doe, trapped in the crosshairs of her dad’s rifle.  Everything came alive around her and meant to kill her.  A rustle in the leaves signaled his approach, an animal call meant his threat.

She became jumpy, sensing him everywhere though he was nowhere.  _Maybe_ there was yet another alternative to his simply setting her free.  Maybe he wanted to stand back and observe what she would do now that the experience was over and she was aware of their kinship and of what she was, to admire his personal handiwork in her salvation.

A dog barked in the near distance and the otherwise hushed night was further animated.  Footfalls on nearby pavement resounded in her ears but she was both too tired and too afraid to check on whoever it was.

 _Pass, please_ , she begged the stranger, her mind too sluggish to form much of a coherent thought.  _Please pass!_   Hoping that her silent plea could be magic and wish them away, she held her breath to wait for whatever was coming.

But the person had a mind of his own, as she dreaded, when his shoes scuffed the pavement and stopped in front of her.  She braced herself for trouble.  Anyone walking the streets at this hour was doing so for no good reason, herself included.

“What do we have here?”  The condescending tone infused with arrogance and animosity that only a thug hellbent on stirring trouble would have.

A low growl near her added to the danger of the situation.  Casey’s eyes fluttered open to find the snarling face of a Doberman pinscher and the legs of its owner.

“Did princess get locked out of her house?  Or did you get _thrown_ out?  Is _that_ it?  You get thrown out?  What did you get thrown out for?  Hey… if your parents don’t want you anymore, I got a place you can crash at.”

He was young, probably college age but even more likely not a college student.  He was big in both in height and width, like a football star, which sank her spirits.  At her best she couldn’t take him.

“Go away.”  She demanded, stern of expression and voice but too tired to get much more out.

“Mouthy little bitch, aren’t you?  You must be all kinds of stupid, sitting out here this late, talking to me like that.  I should teach you a lesson.  Bitch slap your stupid ass.”

The wind shifted the fragrant branches of the large lilac bush nearby and the dog growled again.  Casey fondled the handle of the hunting knife up her sleeve, poised to brandish it at the correct time.  Touching it was like reaching out to an old best friend who was waiting to help.

“Leave me alone,” she said, her voice matching his mockery with savagery.  “I’m _not_ playing games with you.”

“That’s good to know because I mean business.”

Without warning, he yanked her up into a bear hug and she shouted out in surprise at his audacity, hating herself for the cry because she knew he would misconstrue it as a sign of fright that enforced his dominance and that he was putting her in what he believed was her place.  While they fought, the dog latched on to the leg of her jeans and tugged with all its might.  More enraged than terrified, she unsheathed her trusty friend but when she meant to stab his arm, he moved to get a better grip on her and the blade merely sliced him.

“ _Fuck!_ ”  he shrieked, releasing her with a violent shove and staring in disbelief at the thin line of blood oozing from the slash.  “You stupid _bitch_!  You’re _really_ fucked now!”

Sprawled on the ground, Casey was busy reorienting so she could get free of the dog’s teeth to pay attention to anything her assailant was doing or hear what he was saying.  Kicking at the dog and landing a few blows to its unrelenting mouth, she scrambled for the knife that had landed a foot away, desperate to reach it.  He came at her, like a boogeyman looming over her as she lay in bed, spewing a tirade of derogatory words, his foot lashing out to kick her in the chest.  An excruciating agony forced a wheeze from her lungs; the crunching noise of her rib cage snapping and caving in at the point of impact blinded her with a feverish survival instinct to fight harder.

_If I can’t defend myself, he will kill me!  Goddamn it!_

She didn’t survive her ordeal with Crumb to die now on the street, a classroom statistic to be studied by rookies and criminal justice majors because of some belligerent scumbag who couldn’t leave her alone and keep walking!

 _“Never back an animal into a corner,”_ she recalled her dad warning her as they stared at the buck they had just taken down.  _“They will have only one way out and that’s forward toward you.  They want to survive at any cost.”_

The man unleashed an onslaught of kicks, breaking more bones as if they were twigs.  Her breathing became ragged, piercing, but still she fumbled for the lost knife.  It was a hard two-on-one battle because whenever she expected victory in reclaiming the weapon, the Doberman dragged her out of reach.

Dark, wet splatters across the cool grass clued her in on how much damage this bastard was wreaking on her body and she screamed in bestial rage, shocking him long enough to stop his assault for a few seconds.  Survival instinct eclipsed her agony as with one fraught effort, she ignored the pain and breathlessness to strive harder until her fingers at last found purchase around the handle of the knife.  Sitting up, she swung her arm forward and down, driving it with all her might down into the Doberman’s skull.

The dog’s jaws unclenched from around her leg and her attacker howled with disbelief, throwing his hands in the air in a gesture that would’ve been comical had the situation not been dire.

“ _You’re fucking dead, bitch!_   You. Are. _Fucking. DEAD!_ ”

Grabbing her by the throat, he raised his arm to dispense a massive fist to her face, so focused on what he was about to do to _her_ that he neglected to see what was about to be done to _him_.  The lilac bushes swayed again, this time not by the wind but by a blurry image that pounced from them with an inhuman roar, knocking her assailant backwards to the ground.

Casey only saw the indistinct form as it whizzed passed her but she was unable to clearly see what it was.  Dazed from the agony of her jagged, splintered bones, she didn’t know what was happening to the psycho bastard other than he was off her and screaming bloody murder.  Maybe another dog in the vicinity went into protective mode and came to rescue her.  Something not a dog was growling in concert with the man’s terrorized cries but it was all background fodder to her.  What mattered was the asshole was off her, away from her and getting his just desserts by the sound of it.

The opportunity to wrench the hunting knife from the dead dog’s skull and wipe its blood and brain matter from the blade in the cold grass was taken; the story unfolding beside her was of little consequence.  If it wasn’t happening to her, it was not her affair.  Years of being molested made escape imperative and taught her to distance herself from reality that well.  The first lesson in survival was to mind your own business and to look the other way.  Only after she hid the knife back up her sleeve and tried to stand did she see what was going on.

Her aggressor was alive but barely, sputtering and choking on the black blood that gurgled up from the gaping wound in his throat.  A second pair of legs was arranged in a victorious stance over the assailant-cum-victim.  She prepared for another fight against a new threat but instead came eye to eye with a grinning, blood-soaked ally.

“You were worth sparing,” his praise was said in a low purr.

She wanted to tell him that this happened to her because she was out searching for him.  She wanted to beg him to take her back to his new lair with him she wanted to say that she was his protégé and she knew he cared about her.  She wanted to inform him of all those things plus more but instead stood dumbstruck and speechless by his startling appearance and imperious bearing.  Before any words passed her lips, he bounded away in a gait more animal than man and, for the second time that night, vanished into the dark.

Her eyes flew open.  She was still on the ground, leaning against the tree where she last recollected being.  A frantic inspection of the yard for signs of him found it empty of the phantoms that had occupied the lawn with her.  There was no dead dog with a hole in its skull or dying man with his throat torn out.

There was no Beast.

She was alone, as she always had been.  Checking her watch, she discovered that a half hour was lost because she had unwittingly dozed off.  None of it was real.  Both a blessing and a curse, she at least was safe, intact and uninjured any further than the bite in her calf that had been there all along.  Disturbed when she moved her legs, the bite still hurt like hell and she regretted that she didn’t take any ointment for it.  Even a cheap over-the-counter ointment to moisten it would’ve been better than nothing.  Leaving behind the doctor’s prescription was smart since she wouldn’t have been able to get it filled but grabbing a tube of Neosporin from the medicine cabinet would’ve been smarter.

No use in berating herself about it.  She’d need to take care of it later, after she found him.  He was her number one priority.  There was no time to waste, not after seeing the position the moon was taking on its path in the sky.

****

_She, John and her father were stretched out on their stomachs beneath the ghillie tarp, focused hard on the buck as it gingerly stepped out of the brush and into their line of fire.  Casey gasped and the buck perked up, its flicking ears now motionless, drawn to a sound originating from a source it could not see.  Her dad raised a shushing finger to her lips with a strict look that she returned with one of regret._

_The brothers always took turns and this was her dad’s kill.  Casey observed him as he raised the shotgun and put the animal in the crosshairs.  He paused a few seconds, holding the shot, but when he noticed in his peripheral that she was watching him instead of the deer he quickly gestured for her to look where she was supposed to.  Nodding, she did, embarrassed that she would do something she knew she shouldn’t do at such a crucial moment._

_Her dad aimed again then fired.  When the report of the shot split the quiet of the forest, Casey squeezed her eyes closed, a habit she was trying to break because hunters needed to keep their sharp eyes open and on the target.  Eyes on the prize, her dad would tell her.  The buck faltered in step once then fell, not standing a chance as the bullet found its mark and when her eyes opened again the animal was already on the ground._

_“Great shot,” John praised._

_“Thanks,” her dad answered distantly, eyes still never leaving the fallen stag._

_The two and a half hunters rose to their feet and approached the deer, a morbid curiosity gluing Casey’s eyes to the motionless body bleeding into the ground.  As they stood over the animal, the men admired the impressive rack but all Casey could see was the deadened stare of the creature before her._

_Death was a strange novelty for her.  She was too young to know much about it outside of her mother was gone because she died and the deer died when her dad and uncle fired their guns at them.  What death actually meant was a mystery.  If it meant going away, then why don’t the deer disappear?  If the deer stay, why couldn’t her mother come back?_

_Without warning, the buck raised its head and surged upward, a prong from one of its antlers embedding into her dad’s thigh, opening a fair-sized gash that brought him to his knees with a shout.  Both Casey and John were startled but it was John who went to the aid of his brother while Casey stood in place and watched the buck stagger and limp off._

_“Are you OK?”  John questioned._

_Her dad was applying pressure to the wound with the clutch of his hands but he nodded, his face a contortion of pain._

_“Yeah,” was the edgy answer.  “Where did the damn thing go?”_

_John looked over his shoulder and said, “Over there somewhere.  But we gotta get you to the hospital.”_

_“No.  Give me something to use as a tourniquet.”_

_“You need to see a doctor.”_

_“I will, in time.  It’s not that deep.  Give me your shirt.”_

_“Not that deep?  You better look again, bro.  It’s flowing like a river.  We gotta get you stitched up.”_

_There was no lie in what John was trying to show her dad.  A steady river of flowing blood streamed from between her dad’s grasping fingers that he was dangerously ignoring._

_“I’m fine,” he persisted.  “But we’re wasting time arguing and a good buck if we leave.  Come on.  Act quickly, John!  Eyes on the prize, right, Casey?”_

_John caved, saying, “If you pass out and bleed to death, it’s on you, bro.”_

_He removed the outer flannel shirt he was wearing and handed it to her dad who, gritting his teeth, tightened it around the wound very tightly._

_“It couldn’t have gotten far,” her dad said, pain making his voice almost a growl.  “We’ll get it and_ then _go to the hospital.”  Then looking at Casey, told her:  “You always have to push through the pain if something is worth having.”_

****

“Fuck!” she cursed with a stamp of her foot.  “Keep a cool head, Casey.  Boys make a lot of noise.  Eyes on the prize.  He came through here, you know that much.  Where did he go next?  Where is his mark?”

Her desperate eyes roved the landscape for any sign but still found none.  In tearful frustration, she raised her face to the full moon that had thus far helped direct her without her flashlight and prayed. In legends, the Moon was a hunter too.  _She_ understood.  She _had_ to!

“Please.  Don’t let me come this far and have to turn back!  I _can’t_ go back there!”

Delirium from lack of sleep numbed her mind, making all thought difficult.

_Please help me!  Give me enough light!_

Wiping her eyes and sniffling, she hunkered down for a closer look.  A few seconds of disciplined concentration and again she found what she was searching for.  Faint with scattered debris left behind, but she found it and sighed relief.  That was the good news.  To her dismay, she noticed it headed toward a small wooded area and cursed again.

“This is impossible,” she whined, almost in tears.  “I can’t do this.  There is _no way_ I can do this.”

She sat in the tall, uncut grass, drew her knees to her chin and broke down into tears.  Why hadn’t she just stayed home?  Why couldn’t she just call the authorities to handle John?  What was wrong with her to take this huge, life altering risk?  Was it too late to call a taxi and go home?  Could she sneak back in without getting caught?  If she got caught, John would kill her.  She _couldn’t_ go back, not now.  _This_ was the point of no return.  It was forward into the future, whatever was coming her way.

Her eyes, now swollen, looked around ….and she recognized where she was.

 _He’s there!_   _He_ has _to be there!_

Inspired by the revelation, she jumped to her feet and entered the woods, confident that she no longer needed to hunt for clues of his trail.  A fleeing animal’s primary concern is a secure hiding place to serve as shelter to wait out the danger.  He was not exclusive to that rule.  She raced faster and faster, through the murky dark, her heart pounding with the thrill of a chase coming to end.  It was almost over, she knew it.  He’d be there.  _He’d be there!_

Dawn broke in the horizon just when she reached what she expected to be the final destination.  Stepping out of the small wood a few miles from the zoo, she paused to survey what was before her: a dilapidated group of buildings near the river that had once been a neighborhood of townhouses, long ago abandoned and left to fall apart, reminding her of a deserted city.  She remembered reading about them in King of Prussia newspaper because she dreamed of living a better life in one of them.  Years ago, a real estate developer intended to build it as a less expensive but still nice community apart from the exorbantly expensive offerings of city life, pretty but affordable starter homes for the young up-and-coming professionals of Philadelphia.  The project was nixed after funding fell through, but not before the homes were nearly finished.  Now they were forsaken, the idea a dead dream sitting on the outskirts of Philly, rotting away along with the promise that had birthed them.  She was positive the empty homes were where she would find him.

She groaned.  There were enough rooms in front of her that could have her searching well into the next night and still not find him if he was there.

 _He’s worth the trouble_ , she reminded herself and took the first step forward.

Continuing to search for clues as she strolled through the gridwork of the neighborhood, she was forty-five minutes in her exploration with a rising hellish sun becoming hot enough that she needed to pull off her hoodie.  Then she found another sign of him.  A metallic gleam attracted her eye in the doorway of one of the townhouses to her left.  Everything surrounding it was eaten away by rust in various stages and speckled in hues of red and orange or covered by dirty chipped paint.  There was the glint of metal underneath damage and wear, freshly exposed.  The door had been newly broken down.

Her throat constricted and she held her breath until she dizzied.  This was the end of the hunt, the moment she’d anticipated.  Again the choice presented itself with unbidden clarity:  turn around and return to the world and life she hated but knew or move forward to a new life filled with the dangerous, wondrous unknown.  Maybe he would kill her for tracking him down.  Maybe he would reject her and send her back to her certain hell.  Nevertheless, the stark reality of death or being a fugitive with someone like herself did not deter her, for either one was preferred over going back to face John.

Swallowing hard, she sojourned forward with the resolute intention to never glance back.

Despite being steeled in her resolve, she braced herself when she entered and quietly crept up the stairs that were immediately before her inside the townhouse.  There was no telling who exactly she would find waiting for her at the top.  Some of the personalities _must_ have a grudge against her for reasons ranging from not killing them to not being dead herself.  She felt only The Beast would genuinely welcome her but he too was unpredictable.  Fear made her pause long enough midway up to take the handle of her trusty friend concealed in her sleeve; the snap to unfasten the sheath clicked open with a sound that made her wince.  It was a soft sound but she did not know how sharp The Beast’s evolved hearing was.

Muscles tense, she anxiously took another step up, then another and another until, with bated breath, she reached the top.  The room that the stairs opened into was spacious, sun-drenched and smelled old and empty.  Yet it was not empty in the slightest.  There was a vanity and a chair and the chair was occupied.

His back was to her but whose back she did not know.  Afraid to speak, of finding out, she stood in silence, debating on what to say or when to run.  Her body and soul felt as if they were separate entities very much like when John touched her.  It didn’t feel real.  It was a dream and she stood in it wondering just why the fuck she was here in the first place.

“He knew you would find us.”

Her thumping heart died in her chest.  The deep, accented voice with its impassive calm told her what she wanted to know.  When her breath came again, it came heavy but not in a way that signaled fright.

“He asked me to wait for you.  Would you please step inside?”

Without question or hesitation, Casey stepped deeper into the room, nearer to her prize and her prey.  He stood from the chair and turned to meet her; the burden she’d been carrying on her conscience like the bag of supplies that she now dropped to the floor, was lifted.  Emboldened by his proclamation that he’d been waiting for her and finally free, she asked softly, faintly, “Ar--Are you hurt?”

She didn’t get to hear his answer.  Overwhelmed, the pure bone-weary fatigue and pain from her wound at last had their way with her as, in a vertiginous wave of both, she collapsed into sublime unconsciousness.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note:  
> I'm posting this chapter a lot earlier than I wanted to but this is what happens when you're excited about a project you're working so industriously on and get positive feedback for. However, I must warn you: be patient with me between this chapter and the next. Chapter 3 is approximately 30 pages and needs still needs editing... all while working three jobs, going through a mentorship program and writing Chapter 13. Not to mention the typical holiday stuff. I'm a busy bee. But my work is quality and worth the wait. ;) Please be patient for the next one and I will add it as soon as life allows me to breathe. Thank you from the depths of my soul for reading, reviewing and chatting with me about this work. I hope it continues and I hope I continue to live up to your expectations.
> 
> With Utmost Appreciation,  
> James


	3. III.  How We See

**III.  How We See**

_Morning mist spilled into the entrance of the tunnel where the train had just pulled in a half hour ago and Dennis stood on the empty platform watching and taking it as a dark omen.  The train wasn’t due out again for a few hours and even the crew were on break so there was time for him to do what was needed.  Moments before, he’d been patiently waiting in the lobby upstairs for the train to arrive and the platform to clear, seated before the departure board with a steaming cup of coffee in his hand.  Forever seemed to pass before the doors swung out and people with varying burdens of luggage poured out, filling the near deserted room he occupied then scattering in various directions.  Finally the flow subsided and within ten minutes the crew started to come up and repeat the process.  Still he waited a bit longer, in case there were any stragglers._

_When he was confident that all was clear, he vacated his seat and discreetly slipped through the doors and down the steps, dropping the remainder of his coffee in the trash on the way.  The platform was cold from the night’s chill, locked in by the concrete, and he shivered.  He regretted throwing his coffee away as his hands tucked into the pockets of his jacket for warmth._

_The clang of metal against metal echoed in the distance to his right but when he turned to check, there was nothing.  His shoulders slumped with disappointment.  Fingers of the cold mist reached his feet, wrapping ghost-like around his ankles before splaying to touch a wider territory.  He wished he had a scarf to keep his neck warm._

_Another metallic sound drew his attention, this time closer and from above.  Glancing up, he swore he saw movement from the corner of his eye but couldn’t be sure.  He studied the area above, his eyes staring hard into the darkness among the rafters, waiting for more movement.  He wasn’t disappointed.  Seconds later, there was another clang, very near him and above the train just before a protracted complaint of creaking metal rang out and bare feet dangling from above lowered until The Beast himself dropped with a stealthy thud atop the car.  Poised in the crouch of a stalking predator, The Beast peered down upon Dennis as Dennis stared up in reverent awe at him._

_In Dennis’ worshipful eyes, The Beast was the epitome of perfection representing the next and highest form of life that mankind could reach.  Only a pale imitation of The Beast, he craved to be his equal.  Until he achieved that level, Dennis took great pride in being The Beast’s liaison to the others.  Not even the zealot Patricia had seen or spoken to The Beast until last night’s initial emergence.  But Dennis was the first contact, as he had been the first of them all, and thereby formed a tight bond with The Beast that only a chosen favorite could enjoy.  For once, the outcast was someone important._

_Enamored with The Beast’s imperial bearing, Dennis first missed the blood covering the lips and hands of the newly minted alter.  His brow furrowed with concern after it was noticed._

_“What happened?” he inquired._

_“The girl,” came the answer in a low, rumbling voice that came from deep within the broad chest like a lion’s roar.  “Where is she?”_

_“Which girl?”_

_“The girl with the dark hair.  She was not like the rest.  She is Broken.”_

_Dennis’ heart leapt.  The girl he had an interest in was one of The Broken!  He knew she was special, that was why he singled her out with his attentions.  And The Beast predicted she was coming!_

_“How do you know?”  he wondered._

_“All the scars.”_

_Dennis took a moment to process what The Beast was telling him.  His girl didn’t have scars that he remembered seeing.  None were visible when he asked her to dance for him or when he demanded she remove her skirt.  Of course there were areas of her young, supple body that he didn’t have the chance to explore like The Beast obviously did._

_“She will come to us,” The Beast interrupted his thoughts.  “She has found her like in us.”_

_The news lifted Dennis’ spirits but before he could ask questions, The Beast added, “You must wait for her.  Keep her safe for me.  She is beautiful, very strong, smart, resilient.  Like us.”_

_“You let her go?”_

_“She is worthy of us.  She fought hard to live when the other gave up.  We enjoy her fierce will.  She is The One.  She will be my mate.  She_ must _be my mate.”_

_The blood that coated The Beast’s hands and mouth unsettled Dennis the more The Beast avoided answering him._

_“She fought hard to live?  What happened to the other girls?  What did you do to them?  Did you force yourself on them?”_

_The Beast looked down at him with a haughty glare and shifted his weight but kept his silence.  At first Dennis feared he’d pounce upon him and do god knew what in retaliation for his insolence.  He couldn’t be killed here but Dennis knew of a place worse than a grave, a place he spent a decade in, and he didn’t plan on returning there.  The attack never came.  Instead, The Beast sat back on his haunches and continued to stare down at him like a reigning god on an urban version of a steel throne._

_“What happened to those girls, Beast?  Are they hurt?  Did you hurt them?  Do they need help?”_

_“Two of them are nothing.  This one girl is special.  She is perfect.”_

_“Whose blood is on you?  I don’t like this.  I don’t like this at all.  I have a bad feeling…”  Overwrought with a sense of doom he needed to keep in check, he paused to take a deep breath and swallow hard before continuing, “I think it’s a good idea for us to leave Philadelphia.  We’ve done somethin’ horrible and we need to leave.  They won’t find us if we keep movin’.  These hours are crucial.  We need to get out and go someplace remote.  There’s plenty of farm work out in Bucks County.  I found correspondence Barry kept with a preacher who owns a farm with his brother.  Hess, I think.  He knows about us.  They might take us in.  We’d be able to work with our hands, be around animals again, make an honest living.  You’d have more freedom to emerge in open space…”_

_“We will stay here and wait for the girl.  There will be no retreat.  They cannot harm us.  Look at how glorious we are!”_

_“How do you know for certain she’ll come?  Maybe she won’t and then what will we do?  We have to take care of ourselves first.”_

_“One of my most avid believers now doubts me?”_

_“N-no!  I’m just kickin’ into survivor mode.  My job is to protect us.  We should go…”_

_But The Beast ignored his reasoning and stayed on his obstinate path.  “I know she will come.  After I granted her pardon, the look in her eyes told me she understood us.  When she arrives, keep her clean.  Do not touch what is mine.”_

_Chastised, Dennis lowered his head, ashamed that the one he idolized knew his flaw.  “I understand.”_

_“Swear to me that you will keep her clean.”_

_The suggestion that his touch was dirty cut Dennis to the bone.  It seemed that regardless of his best efforts to be spotless he was always dirty in the eyes of others.  Swallowing the lump forming in his throat, he nodded and agreed._

_“I promise I’ll keep her clean.”_

_“Good.  You are very faithful to me.  I will remember your loyal service.”_

_“If she’s lookin’ for you, she won’t be happy to see me.  Not after all I put her through.  Why don’t_ you _wait for her?”_

_“The world and I are not yet ready for each other.  I need more Food.  Ten to twelve new sacrifices.”_

_“Sacrifices?  I don’t understand…”_

_“You made a mistake.  You brought me one of The Broken.”_

_The direct accusation silenced Dennis for a few moments as he tried to take everything he remembered in._

_“Ah-ah-I didn’t kn-know,” he stammered, trying to make sense of how he could’ve been wrong about this wonder girl._

_“It was your responsibility to know.  You were supposed to follow and watch to make sure.  No hand will be raised against our own.”_

_“It won’t happen again.  I’ll see to it..”_

_“The other two were very Impure.  They were ugly and unworthy of the life they were given.”_

_“What did you do?  Please.  Give me answers.  I don’t like bein’ kept in the dark.  Please, I need to know.”_

_“You need to follow orders.  Wait for her.  Protect her.  Keep her for me.  Tend to her wounds.  And to ours.”_

_“She… she’s hurt?  Is that her blood on your mouth?  What happened to us?  How did we get hurt?  What’s goin’ on?  You_ have _to tell me.  Please._ Please _…”_

_The Beast growled low but Dennis wasn’t sure if it was in warning for his persistence or acknowledgment of his fealty.  Without another word, The Beast leapt back up into the rafters with inhuman agility then was gone, leaving Dennis to wonder in an encroaching blackness._

_****_

_“Mr Dennis, it’s your turn.”_

_The child’s voice was soft and near his ear but his eyes didn’t open._

_“It’s your turn again now, Mr Dennis,” Hedwig repeated.  “It’s your turn to take The Light.”_

_Mention of The Light got his eyes to finally flutter open and Dennis found himself in the fetal position in a corner inside a nest of blankets.  Where these particular blankets came from, he did not know, but they smelled clean and were warm and soft against his battered, exhausted flesh.  He didn’t want The Light, he wanted to stay in this makeshift heaven and sleep.  His stiff muscles throbbed, but he suddenly remembered the blood and bolted up, the blankets sliding from his shoulders and exposing him to the seasonal cold they’d been warding off._

_There it was, glaring crimson against his white skin.  The same blood covered his hands that stained the hands of The Beast and the fog of dread rolled back in.  Something sat with a heavy weight in his stomach and he retched in effort to rid himself of the disturbing sensation, all the while fearing the implications of what The Beast did the night before, given the blood and their conversation._

_“Are you OK, Mr Dennis?”  asked the boy._

_“I’m fine,” he lied, identifying the copper taste on his tongue as more blood._

_Swiping a hand across his lips, he saw the confirmation he feared smudged across the palm of his hand._

_“Those girls,” he said, his voice hoarse.  “What happened to them?”_

_“I don’t know,” Hedwig responded.  “He just told Miss Patricia to tell me to give The Light back to you.”_

_“Patricia?  Why did he tell_ her _instead of_ me _?”_

_Hedwig, forlorn and hesitant, dropped his eye contact and shrugged._

_“Do you know what happened to the girls?  Did we hurt them?”_

_“I’m only doing what I’m supposed to do.  I don’t want to get into trouble.”_

_“Where is Miss Patricia?”_

_Again the boy shrugged._

_“Why won’t anybody answer me?”_

_A stern female voice spoke up from over the child’s shoulder:  “Do as you’re told, Dennis.  You don’t need answers.  Not at the moment.”_

_“Do you know anything, Patricia?  Can’t you tell me_ somethin’ _?”_

_“The Beast went dormant.  You were given orders to gather more Food.  There is much for us to do and we have no spare time for quarreling.”_

_“Did he kill those girls?  Please answer me.”_

_“Stop being foolish, Dennis.  What do you_ think _happened?  Do as you are told.  Now.”_

****

Weak autumnal sunlight filtered through the clouded window of the townhouse as Dennis searched the supplies in the closet for the first aid kit.  Back when The Beast was on the cusp of emergence, Dennis was confident that their soundproofed quarters at the zoo were impregnable to unwanted attention.  It was Patricia who vehemently advised to find a new safe haven as a back-up plan in case something went wrong after The Beast had what Dennis strongly suspected to be his first sacrificial meal.  Patricia had her ways and was not one to cross.  Tough as nails, muscular and much larger in stature, Dennis could withstand anyone but always backed down from her.  He could _never_ go against Patricia.  Whatever she asked of him, he did.

In the month before The Beast emerged, he’d found this place which Patricia approved of as a temporary solution to hide and heal for a few days.  He’d equipped the empty townhouse with a few clean changes of clothing, a first aid kit, a few gallons of water, an air mattress and the three yellow fleece blankets that he yearned for, all safely hidden in the closet with a newly installed lock.  Good thing, too, considering the final girl was granted permission to live in the story’s unexpected turn.

Little did he know that she and The Beast would form an emotional bond the way they had.  If he injured her, The Beast himself hadn’t expected it either.  The possibilities of the extent of her injury were as limitless as The Beast’s abilities.  For all he knew, or what The Beast himself knew, the girl’s wounds were mortal and they were putting themselves at risk with every passing moment they waited for an arrival that would never occur.

With The Light regained from The Beast, the terrifying echoes of their conversation lingered along with the foul tang of blood that made him gag, spit and fight against dry heaves.  Then, with horror, he discovered the shredded, raw meat stuck between his teeth and knew it for what it was.  Almost an hour was spent drowning in mournful heartbreak and disgust as he used nearly an entire new pack of floss to extract it from his mouth then brushed his teeth several times, rinsing with mouthwash after each obsessive cleaning. 

What _did he_ do _to those girls?_

Other more urgent mysteries needed solving before that one, such as what the hell The Beast last night.  Only memories of things that happened before The Beast emerged were concrete.  Everything after boarding the deserted train was a vague haze that wouldn’t quite form into a memory.  The adrenaline pumping through their body in a rush he’d never experienced before was remembered.  There were shadowy blurs of who he assumed to be the girls.  He felt the impression of a pair of dull kicks that must’ve been the bullets slamming into their body.  Then there was the sharp taste of copper that was clearly blood.  He hadn’t been given The Light again until The Beast reached this safe haven so it was feasible that he was confusing memories of what he knew with ideas of what might have been.  The girl should be able to bring The Beast’s activities to light, if she came.

Dennis grieved for the way his dream of greatness would end in horror and shame, killed by whatever story the girl had to tell.  That greatness was too expensive a cost if it meant taking lives.  There was nothing great in killing.  He’d rather lead a quiet, simple life of peace, creating, building or repairing things and perhaps somehow accomplish greatness that way.  All of his aspirations and prospects of escape were ruined with The Beast’s demand to wait for her.  The longer he stayed, the danger of being found increased and he couldn’t have that.  His priority was always to protect first.  At the same time, he could not defy The Beast.  His devotion to the new alter was boundless, as now was his fear of him and all that he was capable of.

_We can’t stay here!  Worse things will happen to us and to others if we stay!_

Safe for the moment, he assessed the damage their body sustained.  Raw burn marks from the gunpowder of the suspected bullets were on his shoulder and midriff and he was baffled as to where and how the girl got a gun.  It was clear that The Beast had a kamikaze mindset when in pursuit of what he wanted.  So he hunted through the closet for the first aid kit, trying to not use his left arm where a bullet struck near the shoulder.  Whenever he moved it, it felt like enduring torture on the rack so he held it stationary against his body as a precaution.  His left side sustained the most damage:  their left forearm had a grooved gash down its length that matched lacerations alarmingly close to his throat.

It was true.  The Beast did say she fought back with a ferocity that he greatly admired.  The girl somehow managed to inflict injury on their indestructible body.  Dennis was still upset that his questions about their arm and neck were ignored no thanks to The Beast’s preference to blabber on about the girl.  Aggravated by the manic praising, Dennis set to caring for their wounds, praying basic first aid and old penicillin tablets Barry had in the medicine cabinet would be enough since he couldn’t risk going to the hospital for stitches.  He sighed then cleansed the wounds with alcohol, softly whimpering but grateful that any filth washed away.  When they were clean and raw from the astringent, he wrapped gauze around the long, jagged wound that was etched in his flesh from mid-forearm to elbow and taped a gauze pad over the one on his throat before repeating the process with the gunshot wounds.

Thick dust rendered the abandoned townhouse an asthmatic’s nightmare and a hell for a germaphobe suffering from obsessive compulsive disorder.  Not even his yellow shop rag would be of much help here, he lamented.  Infection was a dire concern despite the protective gauze and he wanted to crawl out of his skin with the imagined sensation of microscopic germs swarming over his exposed flesh.  After a violent shudder, he quickly covered himself with a new undershirt, a clean pair of underwear with a note that he was due for another shave, fresh socks and his favorite old pair of jeans to ward them off.  A steadfast effort to don one of the flannel shirts he had stocked to shield him from the crisp fall air, and sneakers made him feel worlds better.

Finished dressing, he slipped on his face mask and did his best to make their temporary quarters habitable.  Their body, though strong and athletic, complained with pain and its need for sleep, leaving his movements sluggish.  He hated himself for that human weakness, of experiencing soreness and exhaustion; he should’ve been above that as the vigilant protector, the sentinel always on guard and ready for action.  There was no time to spare for frailty.

But Dennis Crumb was only a man, not anything remotely as unlimited and durable as The Beast and come the late twilight hours he found he _needed_ to at least sit.  So he unpacked the wooden fold-up chair he brought from their quarters at the zoo from the supply closet and waited.  At one point he knew he’d fallen asleep because he jolted awake from the falling sensation that meant slumber.  How much time passed, he did not know.  Night had fallen during his blackout and he was relieved that the one blessing coming out of his dangerous exhaustion was that his body was too worn down to be used by any of the others.

Anything could have happened to them as he slept.  It was unacceptable.  Night was probably safer but he still reprimanded himself for being feeble enough to sleep when he could be clearly seen in broad daylight.  Checking his watch, he learned it was just after eleven and decided that The Beast misjudged, that the girl wasn’t coming after all, and he was in desperate need of even more sleep.  He inflated the bed, arranged a few pillows and the yellow fleece blankets on it then considered lying down.

Pouring a plastic cup of water that he placed on the floor beside the mattress, he sat down to a small meal of an apple and a box of raisins.  At first he hadn’t been hungry.  The Beast’s bacchanalia of the Impure girls sickened him.  Despite his wretched despair, Dennis managed to keep the macabre meal of Sacred Food down but it took several long hours before he felt any hunger pangs.

After his meager repast was eaten, he drank two more cups of water, relishing in its clean simplicity, and gave his teeth another diligent brush and floss.  With a groan, he removed his shoes which were placed neatly together at the foot of the mattress, took off his flannel and laid down for the night, setting his glasses on the chair beside him.

Either the mattress was a rare anomaly of comfort or he was too tired to care, but it was a sweet welcome for a man who felt too boneless to have any inclination of moving enough to draw up the blankets.  Groaning, he knew he would freeze if he didn’t so he forced himself to bring them over his chest, arms left on top, and laid stiff as a corpse, exhaling long and slow to relax.  A wildfire of pain and weariness spread through his ravaged body and begged for the sweet dousing of sleep.

The room was much colder in the night hours but his skin didn’t feel it like normal, just like his stomach didn’t feel hunger.  His battered body was numb to all senses as it finally shut down.  Rolling on his side, he was dead asleep before the turn was completed.

****

_The July heat was insufferable in his uniform despite it being garments designed for the summer.  Only four months into his re-emergence and the heat and suffocating humidity was difficult for him to readjust to.  An action-oriented person who loved strenuous physical activity, Dennis considered his lengthy absence from the summer sun a godsend and a hell to him.  If he had been able to have consistent exposure to the sun then he would’ve had a better tolerance for the heat._

_Imprisoned in The Dark of Kevin’s mind for years, he knew nothing of the real world until the incident in April with those girls from Camden.  On the first night of re-emergence, he stood naked before the full length mirror that hung on the back of the bathroom door of their home and admired himself.  Barry had kept up the exercise regimen Dennis set before his banishment from The Light an eternal decade ago.  For all of Barry’s misgivings toward Dennis, he at the very least recognized the importance of what it meant to maintain this imposing, muscular physique.  The powerful body Dennis built and fine-tuned with rigorous exercise and a strict healthy diet was an insurance policy that nobody would ever hurt them again.  It was also an incentive when doing their maintenance work.  Over an hour was spent in that mirror, inspecting and flexing, reacquainting himself with the body that was shared by the twenty-three different people who’d emerged over the course of ten years._

_Finished preening, he rewarded himself with a long shower, relishing in the luxury of the hot water raining down so hard on him it smarted.  A newborn again, everything was new to him again because he hadn’t been able to physically experience in so long.  Best of all, what he felt was real pleasure instead of the pain on which his existence was based.  The world changed a great deal during his time away from it and there was an abundance to learn and familiarize himself with again.  Lathering himself up with a thick coat of body wash, he used his hands rather than the loofa for the chance to enjoy his rock hard curves and sharp contours like a baby just discovering its hands or feet.  Though he could feel his body and he knew he was at last tangible again, he was in disbelief that it finally happened, that he was here and not in The Dark, not in a chair, but alive and in The Light, in the real world… and during better times.  The chance to live and thrive excited him as a thousand possibilities ran through his mind._

_Until one old thought left on the backburner before then resurfaced with a simple innocuous skim of flesh upon flesh.  While examining how cut his thighs were, his forearm brushed against his wakening manhood and he well remembered with a smile the countless hours of pleasure_ this _part had given him.  He’d been so preoccupied with checking Barry’s upkeep of his hard gym work that he’d forgotten this one important part of his anatomy that now demanded his undivided attention._

_A tight gripped fist enclosed that almighty male organ and he moaned, all the bliss of sexual gratification rushing towards the forefront of memory and sizzling every nerve ending.  The first strokes were languid but firm as he admired the weight and girth of his cock, the pliant silky skin over the turgid hardness, the heated arousal in the coolness of his palm.  Such long forgotten ecstasy, all brought back to him by the progressive, furious stroke of his fist until his shaft and body shook with a release that expelled a copious amount of spilled seed and a moan that barely left his throat._

_That first night, under the light covering of newly changed bedding, he regressed back to a curious teenage boy wild with arousal, further exploring his body, to test what he liked and didn’t, and if there were any new acts he enjoyed or old that he no longer did.  An indisputable sex addict, there weren’t many depravities he wouldn’t try.  That had always been and always would be for him.  The pleasure his cock gave was paid in his soul’s shame.  Since he also suffered from obsessive compulsive disorder, he needed to shower again after his messy sexual reawakening.  He needed to stay hygienic, recalling with crystal lucidity the time when he needed to obsessively shower to purify his body of_ her _touch._

_The bed, a vast improvement over a chair, was the sweetest luxury of all.  Barry shared his preference for a firm mattress, which helped Dennis’ body relax better after his traumatic first day back in the real world.  Nothing passed his hunger for experience: he’d eaten slow, savoring the taste of his dinner that night as much as he did the water in the shower, he enjoyed the pleasant ache in his muscles when he worked out, the much cooler night air on his skin as he left the zoo and walked through the neighborhood, his ears treated to the sound of people out on their stoops talking, music pouring from the radios of passing cars, the click-clack of the trains as they whooshed passed on their tracks.  No longer living a vicarious life through another, nothing was taken for granted that first night and he succumbed to it all.  The more experience he got, the more he craved.  He had a lot of living to do._

_But lying still on his side in bed, stomach satisfied, burning muscles alive with flowing blood, his penis flaccid and tamed against his thigh, the touch of the blankets he was under was the greatest comfort of all.  His leaden body was happily overwrought from sensory excess, the soft brush of fleece against flesh was an untold luxury.  Hugging against one of the pillows, he smiled with contentment and dropped off into deep and dreamless sleep._

_The second day of his new existence went the same glorious way.  For a few hours, he pretended to be Barry to thwart suspicion but was called into his supervisor’s office late morning.  Differences in him, not necessarily bad ones, were drawn to his boss’s attention and he called him in to question whether or not he was still Barry.  Dennis sat with his brow furrowed and arms crossed defensively, listening to an explanation that when Barry was hired, the alter disclosed that he was one of twenty-three personalities of a man named Kevin Crumb, a sufferer of dissociative identity disorder.  He knew that Barry was in charge for the last decade and was a hard, reliable worker loved by his colleagues and if Dennis kept up the work, he could keep the job and the home he was given._

_Relieved and grateful, Dennis thanked his new boss, refusing the day off that was offered so he could take care of anything that may need tending to.  The only request Dennis made was for his identity to be kept secret for as long as possible.  He didn’t want to cause trouble, he just wanted to work hard and do his best to deserve the paycheck he earned and the opportunity he was given.  Then he returned to work, keeping to himself because he didn’t know the men who were Barry’s friends and coworkers or how he should act around them.  Nor did he possess enough social skills to interact with them outside of work when they gave him a happy hour invitation after the news finally leaked that he wasn’t Barry._

_But the work… he absolutely_ loved _the work which was more than he could have ever dreamed for.  He liked the animals and the nights after the park closed when everyone went home, leaving him to walk the zoo’s scenic paths like Adam in his private Eden, to observe and study them.  He also liked to sit alone and observe the human animals from a distance, watching and comparing their behaviors with those of the more innocent animals and thinking about the comparisons and contrasts.  He spent a great deal of time alone doing this and his coworkers didn’t know what to make of him.  Some of them were weary but respected his wishes to be left alone, others were afraid and kept their distance after they heard he wasn’t who they expected.  But a man named Edelman watched him with an antipathetic eye as if Dennis was something distasteful that wouldn’t leave the surface of his tongue.  Dennis returned the standoffish glower with one of his own so potent that the other man was backed off.  Edelman kept his hatred quiet but circled like a hyena waiting for an opportunity to poach a lion’s meal._

_These small issues notwithstanding, Dennis enjoyed the outdoors and took every chance to be there.  It was easier to avoid his coworkers if he took projects out where the thick crowds he otherwise was nervous around concealed him.  But he realized he would never thrive if he continued down that path and began taking the lead on work.  When a new building was under contract to be built, he stepped up, backed by past experience in construction, and won the supervisor position on the project.  Organized, driven and precise, his work ethics impressed his boss enough to promote him to head of maintenance in only the short two months he’d been brought back into The Light._

_As the seasonal heat intensified, so did the crowds.  Gradually, the summer became more tolerable and he sweat less, for which he was thankful because when he perspired all he could think about was going home and rinsing off in a long, cold shower.  Yet it could be worse and he was grateful that he didn’t sweat profusely like some of the other men on the maintenance crew.  One in particular, Jim Hauser, was more foul than the animals when in the sun and humidity.  Dennis made every effort to stay clear of him.  Even long after Hauser left the vicinity, his acrid smell lingered like a malevolent spirit and caused Dennis to gag with skilled discretion in the rare mammal house one day._

_Two reasons he excused himself from the others to eat lunch alone outdoors were his social ineptness and that stench from Hauser.  They were justification enough:  the former because over the few months since he’d returned to the world, he made almost everyone as uncomfortable as they made him and the latter because everyone commiserated.  In secret there was still another, more sordid purpose he feared to confess even to himself._

_On the fifth evening after re-emergence, it began.  His deviant sexual compulsion crept upon him like a very unwelcome guest.  He realized the old demon was rising when he caught himself leering at the ass and legs of a girl who couldn’t be older than fifteen.  Though relieved when his attention was jarred by a mother shouting at a runaway child, he’d at first thought she was reprimanding him for his filthy indiscretion.  Guilt complex, he knew, as he turned away, disappointed in himself for his despicable actions._

_Once roused, the urge was difficult to be rid of.  Everything from working out harder than usual, preparing and cooking an overabundance of food, improving their quarters with repairs that Barry neglected in favor of his fashion hobby, and taking long walks around the entire zoo were a few measures taken to cool the lusty fire._ Nothing _worked.  Then while chopping vegetables one night, the kitchen light flickered before going out, sending him into frightful darkness.  A visceral reaction to that darkness paralyzed him with memories of lonely isolated confinement that he failed to shrug off._

_Sucking in a sharp breath through his teeth, he lit a candle from the cluster kept on the counter for emergencies then launched a fraught search for a screwdriver to unscrew the cover of the light, hoping to avoid needing to retrieve his work tools from the service hall.  One wasn’t in any of the kitchen drawers so he ventured into the living area to look.  Too many people lived in the small closed quarters and he sighed with despair, for not only was it going to be difficult to find anything but it took all of his willpower to not to clean and organize right then and there.  All that prevented him from starting a cleaning binge was a resigned decision to make cleaning an extended project to fill time._

_The closet he selected contained a tower of storage bins, each labeled with names of some of the other personalities.  Barry at the top.  Orwell.  Jade.  Hedwig.  Luke.  Mary.  Samuel.  Kat.  Goddard.  Heinrich.  Ansel.  Norma.  Name after name except for two.  They’d kept nothing of his, Dennis noted with anguish.  Never expected to regain The Light again, he was erased from their lives, as much trash as his discarded possessions.  Patricia was also missing so he wasn’t alone in being shunned and that was some small comfort, albeit a very small one._

_Hurt beyond measure, he staggered backward, wiping away the single tear that escaped his iron reserve.  Here was the concrete proof of the others’ desire for his nonexistence.  Did they_ really _hate him_ this _much?  Their disgust for him never went undisguised with their exceptionally cruel taunts of referring to him as an undesirable.  His face contorted with the searing agony of being forgotten like he was nothing, obliterated from existence.  Like he didn’t matter.  His OCD never allowed him to keep many things but what he kept, a note here, a keepsake there, meant a great deal to him.  Now it was all discarded and lost, save for in memory and he was broken by the loss._

_Gathering himself, he pulled out Barry’s container and rummaged through it.  There were plenty of sketch pads, pencils both regular and color, erasers, swatches of fabric, a couple of sewing kits, a rainbow of thread spools, two pairs of scissors, an unwound measuring tape, and everything else an aspiring fashion designer needed.  But no screwdriver.  He knew Hedwig’s things would include toys and Jade wouldn’t be caught dead doing any manual labor so he skipped theirs.  Certainly one of the other male personalities had tools; they worked in maintenance for a living.  Orwell might possibly have one and his box was next._

_As he yanked it free from the closet, his eye spotted something dark blue that resembled rubber.  Well, what did you know?  The bookworm actually had one!  With a feeling of accomplishment, he removed the lid and rifled through the scholar’s possessions until his hand met the object he sought.  Triumphant, he pulled it out but it wasn’t what he expected in the least.  Long, thick and tapered off at one end, the thing was indeed a royal blue piece of firm rubber.  Intrigued, Dennis stared at it with curiosity and turned it over in his hand, finding one side adorned with raised bumps that resembled the suckers of an octopus._

_“Uhhh!”  he exclaimed in horror, dropping the object back into the container after realizing what it was._

_Holding the offending hand away from his body, the retreat to the bathroom where it was scoured hard like a surgeon scrubbing into a surgery couldn’t be fast enough.  Afterwards, the soap was flushed down the toilet, deemed too filthy to keep.  But despite the diligent efforts, his hand_ still _didn’t feel right.  Rushing out to one of the closets in the hallway with a quickened step, he claimed a bottle of bleach that was brought back to the bathroom.  The caustic liquid was carefully poured over his hand until the skin tingled and his sinuses burned, then the hand was again scrubbed with more soap and rinsed thoroughly with cold water._

_To hell with the light in the kitchen.  At this point, it could wait until tomorrow.  It was decided he’d get a screw driver from his locker in the service hall later and keep his tools with him in their quarters.  After he packed the half-chopped vegetables and put them in the refrigerator, he blew out the candle and went to bed, trying to not think of the hypocrisy of the others looking down on him for his sexual preferences when it seemed their beloved bookworm was on equal grounds with him in perversity._

_Those scorned appetites lent him no rest after his eyes shut.  During the night, he woke from an erotic dream of the luscious young girl he’d admired earlier that day, his lubricated fist a poor substitute for her tight pussy.  He cleaned up as best he could, too tired to shower, and spent an hour hating himself until his mind was too exhausted to think.  Only after then was he able to fall back asleep and this time did not dream._

_The fire of torment burned all day next until he sought relief after work the following evening.  Hopping on the trolley that stopped in front of the zoo without first going home to change out of his uniform, he went on the prowl for an adult store.  The one he’d remembered from his first life was still fittingly in the seediest section of town which had declined to become seedier than ever.  Not even_ he _was comfortable being there._

_For several anxious moments he stood outside the grimy establishment, debating whether or not he should go inside while knowing full well what he would stand to lose if he entered.  Swallowing hard and checking his surroundings for any nosy bodies who could be watching, he took a few tentative steps forward but stopped, turned his back and shut his eyes, wishing the damning call of flesh could go unanswered.  He held his breath, counted to ten and focused intensely on not listening.  But when he opened his eyes again, he turned back around and stared for an even longer period of time, still weighing options he felt he did not have.  Sex governed him, left his life and reputation in irreparable wreckage and branded him a deviant.  It wasn’t fair.  He only did what he had to do and years later still paid a dear price for it.  A tightening in his chest and shortness of breath signaled his distress as he removed the Yellow Rag from his pocket and toyed with it in his nervous fingers._

Turn around, Dennis!  Don’t put yourself through this!  Be good!

_The only way to be good was for him to give in a little in a safe manner.  He didn’t know how long he’d be able to remain in control if he continued without some type of release.  The porn shop wasn’t the best idea but at least he wouldn’t end up hurting anybody like before.  The disgusting place teemed with bacterial and viral monsters that were waiting to crawl over his skin and infect him but the neon sign announcing OPEN was an enticing persuasion.  A girl would be safe tonight, at least from him, because of this visit._

_In the end, addiction won as it very often did and, wrapping the Yellow Rag around his hand to protect him from god knew what infected the place, he entered the murky den of iniquity, his face a mask of loathing for both his behavior and the environment.  A few other men populated the aisles, walking dead hungry for flesh, and he joined them, passing anxious, discreet glances their way and at the indifferent pair of shop workers engaged in murmured discussion.  Dennis flipped through the magazines with fingers safely inside a yellow rubber glove he’d received strange looks for when he slipped on, resigned disgust on his face and sweat broken out on his furrowed brow._

_When he left an hour later with two magazines and, after granted admission into the special dark section of the store, three DVDs containing men his age satisfying their own immoral lust with underage girls inside a telltale nondescript black plastic bag tucked under his arm.  Once out on the street, he hid the shame of the black bag inside another bag from Whole Foods.  The cross of Dennis’ sin was heavy on his shoulders when a trio of pretty teens boarded the trolley that took him back home.  The purchases were concealed from sight but his licentious stare could not be.  He sighed relief when he reached his stop, forcing his eyes forward when he passed the girls._

_In the few days that followed, he realized that the phone Barry owned was something called an iPhone and he was able to use it to access the internet like a tiny computer.  That was when he started to stray from the pack and eat lunch outside every day, done for the express purpose of tactfully pouring over the images of teenage girls he’d saved to the phone the nights before.  The phone was a valued discretion.  He could sit in the dead center of the family-friendly zoo and safely immerse himself but appear to be texting someone._

_Soon enough another call to his flesh inflamed the blood of his loins, undoing every safety measure he’d taken._

_On Wednesdays and Thursdays he took late lunches in the picnic area of the African Plains section because those were the days when the zoo keeper assigned to that area spoke about giraffes and he never missed a lecture.  Bryn was every bit as Irish in appearance as her name suggested.  Skin, miraculously unblemished by the sun, so fair it was like milk setting off the flame of her thick, fiery hair that reached the middle of her back.  His favorite thing was her bright emerald eyes, startling and piercing like the blue ones he had.  Slim build and stunning beauty made Dennis wonder if she did any modeling.  To his delight, he found out she was only sixteen and this was her first summer job._

_Their first encounter was on the day of her orientation.  A vent in the conference room it was held in at the administration building couldn’t blow in air conditioning.  He just finished unclogging the obstruction and was climbing down the ladder when she and her high school and college peers hired for the summer filed in.  Their eyes fixed upon each other and she offered a demure smile before breaking their silent interaction.  She was shy, which made her more appealing to him.  His brows knitted together in interest as he folded up the ladder and carried it from the room._

_At every chance he looked for her, finally finding her stationed at the African Plains four days from the date the newly employed kids began work.  Bryn had a friend named Maya, who incidentally did not attend that same orientation but was a keeper who handled the rhino portion of the lectures.  Maya was a dark beauty with deep brown skin and a long, lithe, muscular frame.  The contrast between them fascinated him and it was difficult to look away.  When the pair of girls were together, it was like he was peering into the window of his own private exhibit and they were his favorite exotic creatures, more beautiful than the others housed here from far off lands.  Sight of them was more refreshing than a summer rain, their laughter was far sweeter than notes of music sung by any rare bird and carried him into a realm of taboo fantasy that he struggled to keep under control._

_The unknowing girls provoked his obscene imagination when they clung to each other while lightheartedly laughing and hugged in greeting and parting.  He wondered what dirty secrets they whispered in each other’s ears and about the unhidden intimacy they touched each other with when talking.  Many of his nights were suffered in obsessive dreaming of noisome scenarios like fucking Bryn hard against the Plexiglas on the animal’s side of an enclosure, rutting like feral beasts on display for every visitor to watch.  Even as he watched her interacting with guests, he was thankful for the picnic table that hid the aching arousal of his loins.  Quite often Dennis found himself in the men’s room, sweating and red faced with the great effort of stifling his moans as he frantically jerked off._

_Hasty trips to the bathroom were always made in the final moments of his lunch hour.  Standing with one arm propping his body against the wall, his hand covered with semen and chest heaving in waning excitement, he felt degraded that he would stoop so low as to perform this private act in a public restroom yet relieved that he hadn’t defiled either of the girls with his filth.  Only toilet paper was available for a clean-up and a massive amount was used to wipe off his hand and the toilet seat where his cum was splattered before flushing away the evidence.  With a heavy heart, he left the stall to wash his hands and cool himself with a wet paper towel on the forehead._

_An ache grew in the pit of his stomach that he recognized as the familiar nervous ball of self-loathing and regret for his lack of control over the irrepressible urges.  He was only a man, something a little higher on the evolutionary scale than an animal.  His urges were natural, however scorned not only by society but by himself.  He didn’t need anyone else’s disapproval; he hated himself for them.  Other men ruled those same urges that ruled Dennis.  Why couldn’t he be normal and in better control like those other men?  Lunch was almost up heaved into the sink when the knot in his stomach crept like a choking vine up his throat from the emotional lashings he gave himself.  He fought with all his might to banish the incident from  his mind and regain the stony, indifferent composure he used to hide himself from the world._

Filthy little beast! _Kevin’s mother’s voice echoed back at him from the ether of a memory that could not be forgotten._ You’re disgusting!  You’re a disgusting little animal!  Look what you’ve done!

 _They were fourteen, he and Kevin, when she screamed those scarring words.  She’d found a hidden pile of semen soaked tissues he hadn’t yet flushed down the toilet after cleaning himself from a wet dream.  The incident ended with the most unthinkable trauma he’d ever experienced and he remembered berating himself for the rest of the day for doing something that was uncontrollably natural.  That hadn’t been his fault.  But this with Bryn and her friend?_ That _could be controlled.  He didn’t_ have _to act like this towards them and that he did any way was revolting._

_The cycle continued, despite his mortification, every day for two weeks before the girls finally noticed his attentions.  First, he believed his overactive dirty mind was playing a cruel trick when Bryn made eye contact during one of her energetic lectures.  That first time, her pretty brow knitted, perhaps in curiosity, perhaps in fear.  He didn’t know so he dropped his gaze back down to the salad in front of him.  But it happened again near the end of her presentation when he dared sneak a peek at her, only to discover that she was already focused on him.  This time when their eyes met she offered him the same gentle smile she gave on orientation day._

_Their quiet communication made him fidget with awkwardness.  He didn’t know how to respond or how she_ wanted _him to respond.  Instead, he did nothing but finish eating and return to work where his pent up sexual frustration was rerouted as it had been every day since he first noticed the girl._

_It didn’t take long for the game of cat and mouse to escalate and, in an odd and unexpected twist of fate, the hunter slowly switched roles with the hunted.  By the end of the second week, Dennis caught the pair sharing a bag of cotton candy while watching him.  His social anxiety was unbearable and he was confused as to whether he should be flattered or worried.  Maybe both, he surmised and he knew that the real show was about to begin.  Their new attention, though it stoked his fragile esteem, would be his undoing.  Still he watched and Maya checked to see if he was before feeding a piece of the sugary treat to Bryn who, after swallowing, licked the stickiness from her friend’s fingers.  An involuntary groan escaped his throat and he brushed his hand over his bald scalp before resuming his work._

_“They’re kids playin’ a game,” Dennis told himself.  “They don’t mean anything.  In a couple of days, they’ll find somebody else to tease.”_

_Nevertheless, extra effort was taken to keep the threat at arm’s length and under control.  Dennis began taking lunch near the swan boats, finding that the water’s tranquility cooled his fevered mind.  He needed to avoid trouble.  He liked the zoo, enjoyed the work and loved the animals and the learning environment.  If he lost this job, he’d be ruined.  It was the only thing he had in life.  There was nothing else for him.  No friends or family, no pastimes to distract him other than maintaining his physical fitness and cooking.  Far too much was on the line for him to get involved with these girls._

_Within a few more days, he was eating and watching the swan boats drift on the water when a sweet female voice nearby asked, “You’re Dennis, right?”_

_Choking back well hidden fear and straightening his posture, he scowled at them in attempt to thwart their interest.  “Yeah.  Is there somethin’ I can help you ladies with?”_

_It had been Bryn who first addressed him.  Her voice was soft and sweet, like a little girl’s, and made his groin react with a twitch._

_“Can we sit with you?  There’s nowhere else to sit.”_

_“In the whole zoo there’s nowhere else to sit.”_

_The erratic symphony of warnings in his head was deafening._

I’ll handle it! _he reassured himself with finality._

_He tried his hardest to get rid of them, honest he did.  But the girls were not easily dissuaded._

_“We’ve noticed that you’re always alone,” Maya said, ignoring his inquiry._

_“I prefer to be alone,” he told her, his posture rigid and voice a sharp razor’s edge that camouflaged his panic._

_“Don’t you get lonely?”  Bryn asked.  “Don’t you want to have someone to talk to?”_

_“I think it’s hot,” Maya argued.  “He’s a lone wolf.  Probably an alpha male.  You are the head of maintenance and got promoted pretty fast, didn’t you?”_

_His heart skipped a frightened beat.  Barry had been at the zoo for ten years.  If they knew he was promoted quickly, they must’ve known of his condition._

_“You ladies should find your own table,” he remained resolute.  “This is_ not _a good idea.  Trust me.”_

_“We heard something fascinating about you,” Maya interrupted, ignoring him again._

_He braced himself as his suspicion was confirmed._

_“We heard your real name is Kevin,” added Bryn very quickly, each girl sitting on either side of him which escalated his discomfort.  “Is that true?”_

_He exhaled sharply, fighting to remain unreadable.  “There is a Kevin but I assure you I am_ not _him.”_

_“It must be weird being the way you are,” Maya continued.  “Can you be more than one person at the same time?”_

_“This is_ not _an appropriate conversation to have with me, girls.”_

_“We’re just curious, Dennis,” Bryn insisted, gentler than the assertive Maya.  “We don’t mean any harm.”_

_Dennis shook his head, speechless._

_“Maya, could you pass me your mirror?  I need to check my eye liner.”_

_“Sure!”  Maya reached into the little purse she carried to find the requested compact, which she then furnished to Bryn.  Their hands, all three parties, brushed against each other in passing, though Dennis hadn’t moved a muscle._

_Once their hands made contact with his, Dennis jumped up from the picnic table, saying, “Please, ladies.  That’s enough.  Excuse me, please.”_

_Retreat was paramount for him and he couldn’t get away fast enough, conscientious to take his trash along and throw it in the nearest garbage bin.  He swore he heard the girls give a mocking laugh at his back and his heart broke as he seethed.  How dare they make fun of him?  They had no idea who they were toying with.  He hoped that they didn’t press the issue so they would never have to find out._

_By the time he retired for bed that night and long after his temper finally cooled, he realized that he wanted the girls so badly that he wept.  Lonely and conflicted, he was smart enough to know that they had no true interest in him.  They were talking about him behind his back with the others, he was sure, listening to all the worst possible rumors about his condition, these beautiful young sirens with the beguiling, insincere smiles and offer of false friendship.  He was a psycho, a freak, a beast.  Since they were under age and pursuing him, Dennis wondered if they’d heard gossip about Barry and the Camden high school girls, the incident that allowed Dennis to seize The Light.  An incident like that would embolden a pair of coquettish teenage girls to taunt and mislead a disgraced friendless man if they thought he would take their bait.  It was a game without consequences for them.  For him…_

_His temper boiled again when he thought of the vicious gossip circulating behind his back.  None of them liked him, he knew, not even the ones who attempted to be friends in the beginning.  But he wasn’t there to make friends, he consoled himself with.  He was there to earn his living and free board.  The zoo was a family friendly environment and he was always able to focus intensely on his work to keep himself clean of unwanted desires.  If anyone he worked with suspected he yearned for teenage girls, his employment would be terminated and he would be fired and destitute before he could argue that thoughts were not the same as actions._

_Masturbating in the bathroom was thus far the worst thing he’d done on the premises and that had been done with such caution that they were unaware it happened.  What they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.  But he needed to be so careful to not let it happen again.  Employment was too precious to risk.  Everyone at the zoo was aware of his DID, they accepted and, at best, tolerated it despite either fearing or humoring him.  Either way, he was left in peace.  Until now.  Starting new elsewhere might never be possible for him and he hated the girls for forcing him in this situation._

“You are a filthy little fucking beast, Kevin Wendell Crumb!” _Kevin’s mother screamed at the top of her lungs the morning she found those semen infused tissues._ “You’re a wicked little bastard!  Leaving your filth all over the house like this!  You like to play with yourself like that?!  Come here!  I’ve got something for you, you filthy, disgusting beast!

 _Bryn reminded him of the oft sought after idealistic sweetheart next door, sweet and innocent of the cruel world and who didn’t believe bad things about other people.  But girls next door were not many things Bryn realistically must’ve been.  Girls next door were not Lolitas scheming to seduce older men.  Girls next door were kind and gentle souls, the lucky ones who were virgins to suffering.  The girl was wasting her time.  He hadn’t done anything more than look at her, he hadn’t intended to do anything more than look.  He was too soiled by suffering to deserve her, even if she was his age and interested.  He was in control and must remain in control.  He_ wasn’t _going to_ do _anything._

_Why did everyone choose him to be malicious to?  Did these girls tease him because they knew he wasn’t well and planned to take advantage of him?  He hated them for the possibility.  He hated himself for hoping he was more than prey.  Most of all, he hated not knowing what their true intentions were.  Kindness was such a foreign concept to him that he feared anything other than the abuse he was accustomed to.  He was damaged goods and he knew his place on the bottom shelf, all the while wishing he could be wanted for keeps by someone._

_For a few days he managed to avoid the girls altogether.  It wasn’t until Friday during a mid-day run to the administration building to pick up his paycheck when he found his path blocked by Bryn.  The girl was alone but a sense of intermingled terror, awkwardness and emptiness filled him when he saw her._

_“Dennis, wait.  Can we talk?”_

_“We have nothin’ to say to each other.  Please step aside.”_

_“I have something I need to say to you.  Could you give me a few minutes?  Then I won’t bother you anymore if that’s what you want.”_

_He grimaced and surveyed the immediate area for any nosey bodies eavesdropping or observing the smallest details of this encounter.  Finding nobody, he tightened his jaw and nodded._

_“We shouldn’t be seen together,” he told her, directing her to a spot hidden from view.  “It’s_ very _inappropriate.  How old are you?”_

_“Sixteen.  My birthday is in October.”_

_“I’m thirty-two-years-old.  This is not acceptable, Bryn.  I have DID.  Do you know what that is?”_

_She shook her head, saying, “I know some stuff.  Rumors and gossip, mostly.  You have split personalities or something…”_

_The frustration on his face caused her voice to trail off to nothing._

_“It means dissociative identity disorder.  All those people you and your friend were askin’ me about that live in my head?  Those split personalities?  That’s what it means.  This job is a very rare opportunity for somebody like me.  It provides me with a needed stability and sense of bein’ normal, a constant when at any given moment I could be replaced by a completely different person livin’ another life in this body.  People usually don’t want to associate with somebody like me, let alone to work for them.  I cannot afford to lose my job.  I may not find anybody else sympathetic enough to hire me.  I want to earn my living by workin’, not acceptin’ monthly checks.  If I had to do that, it would kill me.  I need to be active and productive.  Do you understand?”_

_“We meant no harm, Dennis.  Honest.  We weren’t making fun of you.  We were really just curious.  Maya and I like psychology.  We want to major in it in college.  We’re fascinated by you and we wanted to be friends.”_

_“I’m not a lab rat for you to take notes on.”_

_He tried pushing passed her but was blocked._

_“No, you’ve got the wrong idea.  You seem like you’re lonely.  A lot of the others make fun of you.”_

_The dignity he wanted to maintain was crushed by her confirmation that his worries were true but her next words elevated his spirits again instantly._

_“We don’t think it’s right.  It isn’t your fault you have DID.  People shouldn’t be bullied for things they can’t control.  It isn’t right, Dennis.”_

_His nervous fingers knotted in the Yellow Rag, concealed in the pocket of his pants.  Addled by the prospect of being liked, he stood in mute disbelief, staring at her with eyes lightened by her validation.  His customary stern expression eased as he searched for something to say but was at a loss for what it should be._

_It was she who found something in the form of a daring question:  “So…  Is it OK if we have lunch with you?”_

Scummy little beast!  Spreading your filth all over my house!

_Breath held, he nodded, not making eye contact out of fear that his surging emotions would betray him.  Or worse, that this would fade and he’d find out it was an illusion manifested by his isolation and sick mind._

_“But not at the zoo,” he compromised.  “I’ll meet ya outside.  We’ll sit at the park across the street, outta sight.”_

_Which was precisely what they did the next day and every day after for a week.  The girls went together before he followed minutes later, sneaking through the service gates outside his quarters.  If he was missed he could lie and say he ate at home because he wasn’t feeling well or it was too hot or any one of the myriad reasons he had prepared._

_Each day was the same:  he sat against a tree selected by the girls on day one, watching in fascination as they stretched out on the grass and talked.  There was no real interest in participating in their conversations but not for a lack of their trying to interact with him.  Most of the time he didn’t know what they were discussing and, when asked something, he politely shook his head in a painfully awkward manner with his brow furrowed and mouth twisted into a frown.  He was still too new to the world to know the references they alluded to and he wasn’t interested in pop culture and music like they were, nor did he know any of the people they mentioned.  In a way, he felt like a ghost on the outside looking in despite his presence, yet he was there and he was grateful to be included in this small way._

_He leaned back and listened, an outside observer listening to fairies giggle in a glen, angels sigh in Heaven and virgins gossip in a dark room combined into both girls.  The music of their voices gave him immense enjoyment as did the peace of communing with others in a non-threatening way.  And he especially liked taking appreciative peeks down their cleavage when they unbuttoned their uniforms to cool themselves or up their firm inner thighs slick with sweat from the hot day.  He drew his knees up and kept them closed to hide his burgeoning erection from them, contemplating how bad this decision was if he intended to walk the straight and narrow._

Be good, Dennis!  _he willed himself.  Please_ be good!  Don’t touch!  _Look_ but _don’t touch!  Please_ _don’t touch!_ Please _…_

_He was good those days except at home when he furiously masturbated, afterward carefully cleaning himself with a wet yellow washcloth he’d prepared beforehand and placed beside the bed.  Tonight he hated himself less for his transgression and that bothered him.  Barry and some of the others gave punitive lectures that his desire clouded into background noise.  He wanted this too badly and waited too long for freedom to let any of them ruin it for him._

****

He awakened with a jolt, taking an agitated survey of the room for any threat that may have presented itself while he slept.  Finding no danger, he sighed and his body slackened.  He tried to remember the point in time when he’d fallen asleep but couldn’t even remember his head hitting the pillows.  The girl had yet to find her way, if she was coming at all, and he glanced at his watch to see that it was after five in the morning.

“She _still_ isn’t here,” Patricia acknowledged.  “Perhaps she isn’t coming after all.  Something may have happened to her on the way, you know.”

Dennis sighed, not having the heart or fortitude to deal with her pessimism at the moment.

“She’s fine,” he replied, his voice strong.  “She’s tough.  She’ll come.”

“I won’t wish doom and gloom on a child but I _am_ being realistic.”

“She has a significant distance to travel.  Give her a chance.”

“We’ll see then, won’t we?”

He decided it best to not respond.  Let Patricia have her way for now and let the girl prove herself worthy of being at their side.  He couldn’t argue against that reasonable logic and maybe he could get a little peace from the domineering female alter.

Never one to laze in bed, he slipped on his glasses and left the warm, unexpected nest of comfort to prepare for the day and whatever it may bring.  First, he ate a quick breakfast of a few protein bars and water followed by a venture into the shabby bathroom where he performed his diligent oral hygiene routine, rueful that he could not shower.  Next, his wounds were cleaned and the gauze changed, while all the time he still speculated about what happened to his arm and neck.

He’d hoped a good night’s sleep would refresh his memory but he was wrong.  Things were just as muddled as the night before and he wondered if The Beast was purposely shutting him out of the remembrance in effort to hide something from him.

Which was _not_ a good sign.  He was in constant conflict on the revolution The Beast wanted and his standing in it since he took The Light.  He thought he and The Beast left in good standing, The Beast assigning him with an exclusive and important task, and Dennis still believed himself the new alter’s sole confidant.  _Was_ it possible The Beast now hid information from him in favor of telling Patricia, much like how he and Patricia shut Hedwig out of most of their plans?  His mistake with the Pure girl was all the excuse needed to exclude him.

It was simple to be excluded and shoved into the dark, Hedwig being the proof.  But shutting him out would be detrimental to their cause; he was the uncompromising muscle of the operation who hunted and readied the Food.  None of the others wanted to dirty their hands with _that_ job.  He planned to continue only because he hoped to persuade The Beast away from his murderous quest and find other ways to prove themselves to the world.  Wouldn’t the world marvel at all of the wondrous things they could do if they could see them?  Killing was so unnecessary and senseless to their cause.

The Beast approached him because he knew that the long-abused Dennis hungered for greatness and acceptance, to stand out and be someone important.  Dennis’s entire existence centered around proving how powerful he was, how he could not be pushed around.  Their shared dream magnetized The Beast to him rather than to any of the others.  They both wanted the same thing.  But Dennis, who was normally reserved, strong and silent, voiced his unyielding opinion that he did not agree with The Beast’s killing after finding himself covered with blood that fateful morning.

“You are to take orders, Dennis,” Patricia stressed to him.  “We all are.  We need to be supportive of his vision for us.”

“I support what he wants to do, I don’t approve of how he’s goin’ about doin’ it.”

“Mind your words, Dennis.  He may be listening.”

“Maybe he should hear.”

“Maybe you should be careful.  Luke seems like he’s interested in joining us.  He’d be an excellent addition to our cause.  Or a worthy replacement.  You decide which.”

Dennis frowned and gave Patricia a dirty look.  He did not like the mouthy Texan Luke at all and the idea of being replaced by him was unsettling.  But he again backed down from Patricia, the nagging feeling that something was wrong creeping through his confused mind.  Was it true that The Beast was currently dormant, or was he playing a game of omission?  Were The Beast and Patricia exploiting his need to be seen as more?

He tried to put his troubles with his fellow Horde members aside and centered on his hygiene.  As much as he hated the idea, he estimated that he could get away with wearing each change of clothes for an extra day or two depending on how much he sweated and if he could find a way to clean himself and his clothing better.  Another problem that required a fast solution was the food and water rations.  With the girl on her way, supplies needed replenishing sooner than was the original plan.  Only enough for one person for a brief time was stored.  He hadn’t expected in his wildest dreams to need more for someone else.

 _If_ she was coming.  _That_ bridge would be crossed once he came to it.  He held tightly to the hope and did his best to block out Patricia’s threats and negativity.

He stripped bare and washed himself as well as a package of baby wipes allowed then sniffed his clothes to check for offensive body odor before deciding they were acceptable and donning them again.  Used toiletries were discarded into a plastic bag then he went downstairs and far enough from his chosen home to not foul the area with the stench of urine and relieved himself.  While he pissed, he watched the rising sun coming up like a waking god from its blazing horizon bed.  He would have _killed_ for the simple pleasure of a hot cup of coffee to enjoy with the sunrise.  Such small pleasures were already greatly missed.

If he left to take care of other business he was afraid she’d find the place empty except for what she’d no doubt assume was a homeless person’s belongings and leave.  Staying put was a safer bet.  The wait was torture since he liked to keep physically active but the downtime was a benefit that gave his sore and wounded body the rest it needed.  Habit dictated he start his mornings with rigorous exercise:  push-ups, sit-ups, crunches, stretches, anything to limber up and get the blood flowing for a heavy work day.  But now movement was severely restricted and he regretted not having the foresight to stock painkillers that, despite his meticulous planning, he didn’t expect to need.

Sighing deeply to cleanse his mind from the helpless frustration, he tossed the bag of garbage into one of the townhouses a few doors down from his then returned to his makeshift home to fold the blankets on the mattress.  Left with nothing else to do but wait, that was what he did, moving the chair from beside the bed to a spot closer to the window so he could bask in the sun like a lizard on a rock.

An unknown amount of time passed, spent occupied in contemplation about a conspiracy against him between Patricia and The Beast and the looming threat of Luke as his replacement.  He didn’t hear her but the prickly sensation against his back alerted him that someone was behind him.  It could have been the police, a vagrant, a wandering explorer, he didn’t know for sure.  But he took the risk on his gut feeling and addressed her, too nervous to turn around and find disappointment in the presence of another.

“He knew you would find us.”  A tension thickened the room as silence answered.  Good.  She was as uneasy as he was, dying to learn the outcome of their reunion.  “He knew you would come.  He asked me to wait for you.  Would you please step inside?”

Holding a deep breath and optimistic for the best, he rose to greet her only to be astonished by who she was.  There was the expected long dark hair but it was straight and limp rather than in wild waves.  The pair of large dark eyes were correct though they were set not in a beautiful exotic complexion but one of frightened pale white.  Taken aback, he realized he hadn’t been awaiting the would-be dancer who was his type as he anticipated, but the girl who was the spare.  She who was unexpected from the beginning.  Only the two captured with her were the intended targets at the mall that day but this girl’s presence made her a liability he couldn’t afford to release.  He decided she’d be a dessert for The Beast, something extra to win him favor.  If she was with the Impure girls, then common sense told him she too was Impure.  But… she wasn’t.

And _she_ ended up being The One He Let Go, granted her life and freedom by The Beast with a great value bestowed upon her.  All of the dreams Dennis had at setting things right with the girl he wanted died.  This was the girl _The Beast_ wanted, someone he deemed extraordinary like them, and he wanted to know the story behind why more than ever.  Disappointment in her identity notwithstanding, if The Beast said she was extraordinary, then he trusted that she was.  Whatever the reasons, his heart beat as if it wanted to escape his rib cage because, regardless of any distrust or fear, she was the one there with him at last, as promised, and he finally had someone to ease the empty pain of loneliness.  This girl was better than nobody at all, though she was disoriented and looked like she was dragged out of Hell.

Then there was her point of view to consider.  Who she expected to be waiting for her there was no telling.  Likely The Beast, so maybe she was in equal dissatisfied shock at his unwanted presence.  Whoever it was, when she spoke she’d asked about his wellbeing.  All of his discontent for her vanished in the face of her single question.  That his welfare was her primary concern despite her own ragged state warmed the indifference in his heart and raised his spirits.  She acknowledged him as a human being!  A living real person who felt pain!  And it came from someone he did not deserve it from, no less.  Surprise wouldn’t let him form an answer.  In the time he wasted thinking of one, she fainted and he rescued her from a hard slam to the floor when she collapsed into his arms like the damsel in distress he knew she couldn’t be if she won The Beast over.

Not yet knowing if she lost consciousness from her injury or if she simply gave in to exhaustion, he carried her to the mattress where he placed her down then stood over her, watching as if waiting for her to come to.  Reluctant to take his eyes from her, he rushed to reclaim the first aid kit, left near the bathroom sink after his earlier use.  When he returned, he froze and resumed his indecisive stare at her immobile body.  His tongue ran over his lips, wetting them in lascivious contemplation on what specifically would and wouldn’t be an affront to The Beast’s proprietorship.  She was pretty, just not what he preferred, but no less a temptation.  Certain lines were drawn for her safekeeping and she was spoken for but he was not sure where the lines, if any, were drawn for him other than not being allowed to sexually violate her.  Like before, The Beast did not want Dennis to defile what rightfully belonged to him and if he felt that way about his Sacred Food, then he would certainly feel that way about his chosen mate.  However, if his fingers brushed over a small patch of bare skin while inspecting her for wounds how could The Beast complain?  He was doing what was asked of him.

Hand trembling with desire, he set to locating the wound with a fevered zeal he wasn’t proud of with every article of clothing he stripped off her.  When he removed her hoodie, he found a very imposing hunting knife in a sheath under her sleeve and frowned.  He supposed it was smart for a solitary teenage girl traveling at night to carry a weapon but he wondered if protection was its only purpose.  Placing it on the floor beside the mattress, he shrugged off its existence.  If revenge was her intent, she had perfect opportunity to use it yet didn’t.  She could’ve slit his throat or stabbed him in the vulnerable points of his backside but instead she’d asked if he was hurt.  No, she wasn’t there for payback.

Then, upon removal of her final shirt, he saw why The Beast spared her life.  Long, ragged scars were carved in angry red across the plains of her torso in any available space within her reach:  her taut, concave stomach, her chest above her breasts and even her shoulders.  Some of them were raised or puckered and he wondered what happened to her.  Empathized rage surged through him like a storm front over the idea that anyone would do this to her when he recalled his own past abuse.  A furious need to know the truth behind this rose in him along with a strong urge to avenge the girl.  His face scrunched with infuriated restraint but within seconds, he dared to caress the ugliest scar across her tight midriff until anger boiled the lust out of his system.  He _needed_ to know what happened so he could take care of the problem that caused it later.

“Dennis!”  Patricia suddenly came to the forefront, sharing The Light to launch into a tirade.  “What do you think you’re doing?  Leave the girl alone!  Do what you were asked to do and no more before you jeopardize your good standing!”

“Look at her!”  protested Dennis.  “These are old scars.  It looks like somebody tortured her.”

“That is none of our business.  Finish caring for her wound and do _not_ lay another hand on her.”

“I won’t.  Just let me do my work.”

With Patricia pacified, he finished undressing the girl to her underwear, then stepped back and again licked his lips, staring pensively at her legs for several seconds.  Unable to resist, he surrendered to addiction and traced a muscle in her upper inner thigh with his trembling fingers.  It was then when he took note of her other physical traits, still finding things he favored, most notably her breasts.  They were a good size, neither too large nor too small, the way he preferred them.  They were perfect and he considered slipping a hand into her bra to cup one, test its weight and toy with the nipple until it stood to his hungry attention, teasing him with the mutual want to be sampled with a gentle sucking.

 _Be good, Dennis!_ he thought, taking a moment to collect himself.  But it was a losing battle.

With heavy breathing and a tightening in his stomach, he slipped the bra cup away from the breast closest to him.  Her nipple, a rosy and luscious reddish pink, popped out and immediately erected from the cooler temperature.  His mouth watered for a taste, his loins burned to ravage her.  The opportunity was so ripe, he thought, watching the rise and fall of that nipple with her steady breathing, his cock matching its hardness.

But that wasn’t who he was.  He’d never touched an unconscious female before and, perverse as his preferences were viewed, he still had morals.  Physical pleasure only served as a means to an end for what he truly wanted.  What he wanted was to _be_ wanted and needed, and despite his social awkwardness, managed to win girls over through his proficiency as a lover.  Some girls even endeared him to them because of his awkwardness.  But to violate someone without consent meant being a true monster.  His inability to bring himself to commit the crime he so often was forced into in Kevin’s place, his experience and respect for The Beast kept his addiction under control.  No consent, no sex.  Teen girls were the Achilles’ heel that tested his discipline but he was not a rapist.  Groaning, he defied his impulses and slipped the bra back into place without any molestation, even as his eyes leered at the crest of her cunt outlined through her panties.

Lost in a swoon, his eyes widened and he shook his head to dispel the fainting sensation that overwhelmed him.  Life was unfair.  It would’ve been smarter for The Beast to leave Patricia in charge of waiting for the girl.  Why The Beast trusted him of all people to guard his future mate was beyond Dennis’ comprehension, unless it was a test to see if he was still worthy of his station.  Thought of The Beast was a reminder that he was wasting precious time while the urgent matter of her wound was being neglected.  For all he knew, the girl could’ve fainted from blood loss.  Her pallor was already paler than it was when she arrived and it worried him.  She needed urgent care.

The wound was found on the back of her calf, blood saturated through the gauze covering it.  Groaning with disgust, he slowly peeled off the bandage, trying not to touch the soiling blood as it trickled from the injury.  The problem was a stitch that split at the center where the wound was the widest.  Staunching the flow by pressing new gauze down hard over it, he cinched his eyes closed so he wouldn’t have to look but was still nauseated from knowing that blood leaked onto his fingers despite bunching the gauze into a thick ball.  Once the bleeding stopped, he’d have to clean and touch it to apply medicine, which did not please him.

Raising the gauze to check the flow, he saw it was slower but still coming.  With a grimace, he bore down harder, turning his head to look away.  It was _on_ him, damn it, he saw it when he lifted the dressing!

“Please stop bleeding, please stop, please,” he begged in a distressed whisper.

Thirty seconds more was his chosen deadline.  Afterwards, he would need to find something else to pressurize the bleeding.  Turning his wrist over as much as he could without lessening pressure, he eyed the second hand on his watch with bated breath until it counted down his time allotment.  When the aeon was over, he quickly yanked his hand away and, with a great sigh of relief, discovered the bleeding stopped enough for the wound to be dressed.  He wound more bandages around and around until they formed a thick padding then taped them snugly into place as a tourniquet.  The gory bandages were thrown away in another plastic bag that he planned to burn later before leaving.  Blood was evidence he couldn’t afford to leave around.

After storing the first aid kit back into the supply closet, he sat in the chair and watched her sleep.  In this state, she was one part angel reclaiming her innocence from whatever hell slumber saved her from, one part devil coaxing him into a heaven of delights with her young, tender body.  A violent shiver rippled through her body and she drew up into the fetal position, breaking his vulgar reverie.  Guilt slugged him like a fist when he realized that his selfish voyeurism could get her sick and he covered her up.  Enveloped by the sudden warmth of the blankets he coveted, she wiggled and faintly smiled, brightening his mood when he saw it.

The backpack she dropped before collapsing came into his sight.  The hunting knife was a glaring red flag that he should search her possessions for any other weapons, just to be safe.  Snatching the bag from the floor, he unzipped it and searched the contents of its main compartment, finding snacks, water, hygiene products, a few survival items and cash.  He counted out the money then buried it at the very bottom of the bag where he expected it would be safer.  Stealing was not any more acceptable than killing was; he preferred to earn his money.  She could have her cash.  He had his own.

A deft pick through the many compartments of the backpack unearthed a sketch pad that piqued his curiosity.  She was an artist!  Eager to learn more about her, he pulled the sketch pad free and flipped open the cover.  Disappoint stung him like a scorpion sting when a drawing of the girl herself standing in an intimate pose with The Beast met his eyes.  So it _was_ true.  She truly _did_ want him.

He glanced at her, a terrible sadness in his eyes.  True enough, he was told that she would be coming for The Beast.  But he wasn’t prepared for the prospect that she would _want_ The Beast in _this_ way.  Pathetic as it sounded, he wanted her to want _him,_ even though she wasn’t who he’d wanted either.  He mentally kicked himself for the idiocy of his hope.  Of course she wouldn’t want him.  Who in their right mind would?  If anyone wanted him it always was to take something away from him that he was not willing to give, or to use him to do some dirty thing they didn’t want to sully their own hands with.

The Beast himself was guilty of that, he knew with bitterness.  Yet The Beast promised to deliver his acolytes to glory, and as his hardest worker, Dennis was sure to be revered to the world inside Kevin’s mind and to the real world out.  He admired The Beast because the other alter did not possess the flaws so rampant in Dennis.  More than anything, Dennis wanted The Beast to teach him how to rid himself of those weak characteristics.  The Beast was a perfect being who achieved with ease the goals Dennis strove his entire life to reach but never quite succeeded.  How could he blame this girl for wanting The Beast?  He was beautiful.  With a sigh, he put the sketch pad back in its pocket, out of sight.

Before sitting down again, he folded her clothing and neatly stacked everything in a pile at the foot of the opposite side of the mattress.  Funny how he had spent a week with this girl and never knew her name, not that it was important then when she was meant to be only Food.  But now sitting here, seeing her as a person who was concerned for him, who obviously suffered in a mysterious way, who was a brilliant and creative artist, seeing her as a human being the way she saw him as a person, he wondered what her name might be.  No identification was found on her but why would there be?  She’d run away.  She didn’t want to be found. 

He was anxious to talk to her and prayed that she would take time to get to know and eventually trust him.  Essentially, he wanted forgiveness, to start new with her and have a potential friend _he_ could trust in turn.  A friend was what Dennis needed most.  There was a feeling deep down inside that she would understand him. A confidante in the physical world outside his own head was invaluable to him since Dr. Fletcher gone.  Relief from loneliness just by having the girl at his side was a delicious godsend.  He wanted her to wake up just to hear another voice that didn’t come from his shared mouth and yearned with a despondent want for human touch of another upon his flesh, even if it was to slap him.  He sighed again and waited with an impatience uncharacteristic of him.

Since she was there exclusively for The Beast then they could discuss all of the beliefs engendered and preached by the new alter.  She too would be a compassionate disciple, he knew.  It would be nice to have someone on the outside of his head who believed in The Beast’s gospel and what he, Patricia and Hedwig were trying to show the world.  She could bear witness and lend her testament to the dawning of the new age of higher human evolution.

****

 _“She_ actually _came to us.”_

_“He said she would.”_

_“Yes, but seeing her here is a whole different story, isn’t it?”  A pause as the speaker watched the sleeping girl through another’s eyes.  “What do you suppose she’s told about us?  It would be stupid of her to say too much then come after us the way she did.”_

_“She’s not stupid.  She came back to us for a reason.”_

_“Yes, I’m_ quite _sure she has.  Our little herald.  He was right.  She’s come for_ him _, hasn’t she?”_

_“He said she would,” he repeated, annoyed at doing so._

_“What do you suppose she wants with him?  Do you think her intention is to try to kill him?  We found that knife she was hiding.”_

_“She didn’t come to kill him.  She could’ve killed us but she didn’t.”_

_“_ You’re _the one he talks to.  What do you suppose_ he _wants with_ her _?”_

_“He said she’s Pure.  That she’s like us.  Didn’t you see her scars?”_

_“No, Dennis, I prefer_ not _to watch as you violate young girls.”_

_Her voice was a snappy hiss and he cringed from the conviction behind it._

_“He said she was injured and needed help.  I was giving her first aid.”_

_“If that’s your excuse, Dennis, but if he wants her, you better keep your hands off.  What could he possibly_ want _with her?”_

_“Time will tell.”_

_“That’s precisely what I fear.  We don’t have time to waste.  What are we expected to_ do _with her?”_

_“She needs medicine and rest.”_

_“And you plan to risk providing it.”_

_“She’s too weak to run.  She won’t be a problem.”_

_“Can we trust her?”_

_“She came to us.  She doesn’t_ want _to run away.”_

_“I’m not sure I like the idea now that she’s here.”_

_“Either way, I have to keep her for him.”_

_“Well, then.  She is_ your _responsibility.”_

_“Don’t worry.  I can handle her.”_

_“That’s what we thought before.”_

_Dennis scowled at the familiar ladylike chastening, knowing she was telling him that he was a disappointment to her and The Beast._

_“But before she was_ brought _to us,” he reasoned.  “This time, she_ came _to us.”_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise! Did you miss me? :D So sorry for my lengthy absence; it wasn't meant to be this long. Got a lot of major things happening in my life. Only a few more days and all of your questions about Eastrail will be answered in Glass! Guess what? One of the things that happened is I actually got invited to attend the premiere and afterparty for Glass here in NYC on Tuesday night!!! I'm so excited I could DIE! 
> 
> But anyways, personal news notwithstanding, I hope my update was worth the wait (this chapter is rather long) and I'll catch up with answering my messages later tonight because I still need to make final preparations for the premiere. But I do want to tell the few who had negative remarks about the story: hey, I'm WRITING this for ME, I'm only posting it for everyone else. You can choose to read something else. Constructive criticism is OK, being a dick is not. To everyone else, love you all and talk very soon.
> 
> xoxo, 
> 
> James


	4. IV.  What They See

**IV. What They See**

_An excruciating pain biting into the tender flesh of his back was the very first memory Dennis ever had.  He was six years old, three years older than Kevin, and his introduction to The Light was this ungodly suffering as Kevin’s ruthless mother beat the boy with a leather belt.  Brand new and too young to understand why this was being done to him, all he could think of was how much it hurt and that he could not escape when he struggled to get away.  Face down on the woman’s lap, his vain effort was thwarted by his assailant who pinned down his small body with an elbow behind his shoulders.  He became aware of what was happening to him very quickly, an ocean of streaming tears joining the white hot heat across his back as the thick strap rained down in several hard consecutive blows.  He screamed and choked, wailing in terror and agony until his head ached from stress._

_The shrill sound of her voice pierced his ears with the shriek:  “Quit your crying, you worthless little bastard, or I will give you something to_ really _bawl about!”_

_Self-preservation kicked in.  It hurt_ so much _and Dennis believed her threat.  The boy choked and stifled cries and ceased movement as he received three more lashings with the insidious belt before she carelessly shoved him off her lap.  Dennis landed so hard on the bare floor that the impact stunned him while his abuser simply stepped over his body, leaving him weak and quaking on the floor.  There he remained, wishing the torment away, heaving and gulping in breaths to prevent the sobbing that would bring her back._

_“Leave a mess like that for me to clean again and you_ will _get it even worse!”  she threatened, stomping out of the room._

_Several minutes passed with Dennis lying prone on the floor before he was able to pull himself up in a sitting position so his burning skin wouldn’t touch anything.  During the time he took to calm down, his face hidden in the crook of his elbows on the mattress, he thought about what happened.  He didn’t know what he did to deserve the harsh punishment or why anyone would want to hurt him so much but he knew for certain that he could not make a sound even though he wanted to.  His body quivered from pain that intensified rather than lessened and he wished somebody was there to hold him and make him feel better._

_But nobody came.  He was alone in the room he realized was his, fighting against a child’s reaction to the sting of his raw back for a very long time, listening to the woman downstairs complain stridently to herself as she stomped through the house.  Hours passed.  The room darkened as night came through the windows and with it the cold from the absence of the sun.  Nobody came to help him.  Nobody came to check him.  His tummy rumbled with hunger and he was thirsty too but he refused to move.  The cold was balm for his back but his muscles ached from remaining immobile for such a long period.  Finally, he stood on wobbly legs long enough to flop across the bed on his tummy, burying his face in the pillow._

_A blankie found at the foot of the bed was what he drew around himself as he watched snow flutter down in large flakes outside his window.  The rich aroma of food cooking downstairs stirred his stomach again.  He waited to be invited down to eat or for food to be brought up to him but lost hope when time inched by and abandoned the forgotten boy in its increments.  At a late hour, he heard Kevin’s mother’s footsteps heavy on the staircase near his door and he braced himself for more abuse when her shadow appeared in the hallway.  A handful of bedsheets were bunched up within his tightly clenched fist in anticipated terror but she passed his room and went on to her own, the door shutting behind her.  He was so relieved he felt faint._

_Quaking from cold and lingering pain, he sat up and listened intently for any signs of life beyond his door.  Blanket clutched in his hand for security, he tiptoed to the door and peeked out in the dark, empty hallway.  With it clear, he stepped beyond the threshold of his bedroom door and to the stairs.  The next level of the house was saturated in an inky blackness that Dennis peered into, trying to be brave in the face of unknown monsters down there awaiting him before glancing back over his shoulder toward the closed door that confined the monster he knew._

_Hunger beat fear in the end and he cautiously scooted on his butt down the stairs one by one with the precious blanket in his lap until he reached the bottom.  The room, especially the wooden floor, was freezing but it didn’t bother him much.  He was busy staring in wonder at every alien object that cast a frightening shadow, first imagining they were great beasts waiting to devour him before seeing them for what they truly were.  Chairs  A couch.  Tables.  He wasn’t afraid of them._

_The soft sounds of his bare feet padding across the room were defiant, Dennis ready to battle any monster that challenged him in his quest.  If monsters came, he would fight them because he_ had _to eat.  When he saw the refrigerator, he broke into a run towards it and swung the door open, bathing in its bright light and frigid breath.  The first thing he found was a large open package of raw hot dogs and reached in for one.  Gone in seconds, the first hot dog was followed by a second, then a third.  Original thirst and thirst created by the saltiness of the hot dogs became unbearable for him and he needed water.  Finding a step stool in a corner, he dropped the blanket to push the stool over to the sink, filled a plastic cup with water and drank until he felt like bursting.  Finished, he at first left the cup in the empty sink but then remembered the indelible words howled at him during the beating:_

Leave a mess like that for me to clean again and you will get it even worse!!

_Whatever mistake Kevin made, Dennis was determined not to make it again.  His back was a torn reminder.  Since the sink was bereft of other dishes, he put the cup and the stool back where he found them, determined to avoid another beating.  Reclaiming the blanket from the floor, he hugged it against his naked chest and went to stare at the ominous staircase again.  Far more foreboding in the prospect of being caught where he had no business being, he was afraid again, this time not of strange monsters but of falling.  If he didn’t get hurt from the fall, the Mother Monster upstairs would be the one to hurt him.  He had to be very, very,_ very _careful!_

_With the utmost concentration, he crawled on his hands and knees back up the stairs, taking them one by one and slow like a turtle, the blanket clenched between his teeth as he made his way.  Suddenly the end of the blanket slipped between his knee and the next stair and was yanked from his teeth.  The sensation of toppling backwards caused him to gasp and stop for a moment to steady himself.  Entangled with his leg, the blanket was at a precarious distance from the small, unsteady hand that reached for it.  Almost within grasp, the soft fabric touched his fingertips and, with an extra push, he seized it and put it back in his teeth._

_It wasn’t the only incident in the harrowing climb.  When his knee came up, it missed the next stair and slipped off the edge.  With a frightened cry strangled by the mouthful of blanket, he slid backwards on all fours down a few steps, his fingers not strong enough to stop him when he tried to grab hold of one of the stairs.  For once, he was lucky and didn’t go completely down or take a worse fall.  At first he was too shocked to move again after his descent halted.  Then he glanced at the hallway above, expecting to find the monster glaring down at him with vicious intent.  Nobody was there and his body relaxed in knowing he still had a chance at getting to safety unscathed.  Limbs trembling, he continued his intrepid ascent, hastening to make up for the fall._

_With sweat on his brow and his eyes large with fright, he reached the second floor.  For a moment, he remained stationary in the hallway, knees in a slight bend from the resulting painful tingle from his fall and eyes trained on the door concealing Kevin’s mother.  No light seeped from under the door of her room and he relaxed knowing that she would leave him alone.  Yawning, he rubbed his eyes and staggered back to his bed to again lie down on his stomach._

_Snow was still falling and he thought it was pretty, like bits of cotton tumbling down from an angel’s pillow.  Maybe the angels were having a pillow fight, he thought with a gentle smile.  But angels were supposed to protect people, not play.  Why couldn’t one of them protect him when he needed help?  God should’ve been able to spare one to defend a little boy, even if it was just a baby angel.  Any would’ve been better than none._

_Fatigue was taking him and cold followed with it.  Though his back was a skinned, cut mess, he needed the warmth the blankets offered.  Carefully, he crawled underneath them and settled, wincing when they touched his wounded flesh.  The blankie that went with him on the kitchen raid was tucked under his chin and held in his arms for comfort._

_When he closed his eyes, there was a smaller boy standing in The Dark, anxiety straining his tear stained face.  He took a single step forward but halted, wary of the older child.  He bit his lip and shifted his weight while Dennis stood his ground, waiting._

_“Dennis?”_

_Dennis remained silent, analyzing the other boy.  He knew this was Kevin and he knew he was Kevin’s angel, sent to take the punishment he could not endure himself._

_“I’m sorry,” Kevin apologized, his voice meek._

_Pity swelled Dennis’ heart._

_“It’s not your fault,” he said, his voice strong.  “C’mere.”  His open arms were readily filled with the smaller boy who rushed into them with devotion.  “I’ll protect you.”_

_“Like a big brother?”_

_“Yeah.  Like a big brother.”_

_“Good.  I need a big brother.  She hits me a lot.  She likes to hurt me.  I’m sleepy.  Can we sleep now?  And you cuddle with me, OK?”_

_“OK.”_

_Dennis did not want to deny Kevin the solace and refuge he sought too.  A bed waited for them, just at the edge of The Light, and the children nestled there together, Kevin pressed firmly against Dennis who guarded him with his life._

****

Yellow was what she saw when her eyes cracked open and Casey needed to think through a haze before the last thing she remembered came back to her.  Surprise waned into a pleasant calm when she realized she was lying in a bed, snuggled underneath a triplicate of fleece blankets in varying shades of yellow that were pulled over her head.  Warm and comfortable, she didn’t want to move.  The rest was direly needed as was the peace and sanctuary of her state.

Beyond the light and pleasant scent of clean fleece lingered the staleness of age and abandonment around her that ruined the sense of being in her own bed.  Stirring, she poked her head out from under the blankets like a frightened rabbit from its burrow.  A hulking silhouette sat rigidly in a chair near her, positioned so that he could watch over her and she groaned, wondering if it was still Dennis.  Chances were it was. 

“You’re awake,” his deep voice broke the quiet she relished, confirming what she suspected.

Recollection of what he was capable of rendered her speechless.  Dennis was her abductor, he Horde’s muscle, and she was terrified of him.  Despite being an unpredictable animal, Casey knew in her heart that she could trust The Beast.  He understood her, sympathized with her experiences and would never inflict more suffering upon her.  But Dennis was different.  She didn’t believe he held the same principles.  She was aware that as a Horde member he needed to follow rigid orders but she knew that had The Beast not issued those orders her story would have a very different outcome.

Patricia’s declaration that Dennis was sick was an understatement.  He was unstable with a rapacious sexual appetite.  Casey recalled his lecherous glares at his female captives, never bothering with discretion, and the way he bullied them into stripping with bullshit excuses.  The way he eye raped their exposed bodies churned her stomach.  And god only knew what he actually did to Marcia in that room while alone with her but it was evident his hand was not where it had any right to be.  Over the duration of the ordeal, none of the girls ever spoke so much as a word to Dennis because they were too frightened of him.  Her present concern for him was _only_ out of concern for The Beast’s physical well-being, otherwise Dennis could rot in Hell.

A sudden awareness that she was wearing only her underwear, overwhelmed her with panic.  Squeezing her Kegels to check for soreness, she was relieved to find none.  As a double check, she inserted her index finger inside herself and first sniffed then tasted but there was no trace of invasive, unwanted semen.  She’d been left inviolate as far as she could tell.

“I didn’t touch you,” he grumbled.

A longer pause strained the space between them as she drew the blankets up to her chin, not taking any risks with a known sexual predator.

“You have a wound on your leg.  The Beast is sorry he hurt you and he wanted me to apologize on his behalf.”  She didn’t look at him and remained silent as if she hadn’t heard, absorbing his recital of what he was told to say like the puppet he was, but he continued.  “I didn’t know where it was so I removed your clothes to find it.  I cleaned it and put a new dressing on but one of your stitches split.  You need ointment for it so it won’t infect.”

The silent treatment prevailed and it exasperated Dennis’ artless conversation skills.  Nevertheless, he continued to try, his disappointment in her silence becoming increasingly visible.

Holding his arm up for her to see, he informed, “I got hurt too.  Do you know what happened to me?  I have no memory of anything passed getting on the train to let him emerge.”

Still the frosty indifference.  The frustrating, annoying silence that made her smile inside at his discomfort.  The dying glimmer of some unknown hope in his eyes pleased her.

“Do you need water?  Are you hungry?  I don’t have much but you’re welcome to everything I have.”

Her throat was dry and her tongue felt like sandpaper.  She was _dying_ of thirst but didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing she needed something so she continued to ignore him.

“Please excuse me.  Ah-ah-I’m… not a good host.  I don’t interact with many people.  I prefer to keep to myself.”  Then in a tortured whisper, he added, “I’m _trying_.”

He waited, forever hoping for a word to be said from her mouth but it never came.  Sighing, he rose from the chair and she withdrew further away on the mattress.

“I’m not gonna to hurt you.  I’m here to protect you for him until he comes.”

She refused to make eye contact with him, distrusting every syllable from his mouth and not daring to say anything herself however badly she was dying to ask where The Beast was.  If she continued with the silent treatment, maybe he’d leave her alone.  Maybe her coldness would bring The Beast out.  She wasn’t there for Dennis; he didn’t matter.

She watched him stroll across the room to open the closet where he rummaged around in stuff stored inside.  When he returned, he placed a bottle of water, a banana and a granola bar on the floor beside the mattress.

“Eat somethin’, please,” he urged, sitting down again.  “You _have_ to be starvin’.”

She eyed the peace offering with a longing that evoked hunger pangs, wanting it but not wanting the relationship attached to it.  Accepting it would mean defeat.  Her stomach growled and she retracted farther back into the corner so he couldn’t hear it.  She wanted nothing from him except an answer to a question she was terrified to ask.

“Are you warm enough?”  he continued to pursue conversation.  “Put your clothes back on.  They’re folded at the foot of the mattress.”

Hatred fired at him like poison darts from her eyes.  Gripping the blankets tightly around her body to hide as much as she could, she leaned over and snatched her clothes, her eyes never straying from him.

“I need to go out for some things.  He said to expect you but I honestly didn’t think you would come.  I’ll be back as soon as I can.  I’ll leave the closet unlocked.  If you need somethin’…”  He hesitated, a worried question of his own forming on his lips.  The Beast would _not_ be happy with him if he chased her away, they both knew.  “You won’t leave, will you?  While I’m gone?  You need rest.  Lie back down.”

The contemptuous fire persisted in her eyes but her wordlessness was frigid.  She neither spoke nor obeyed his request to lie down.

“OK,” he conceded, rubbing his head as was his nervous habit.  “I’ll be back.  Don’t go anywhere.  Please.  Just… stay.”

Casey waited until his heavy footsteps descended the old wooden stairs before dressing in a panicked rush in case he returned for whatever reason.  Fully clothed again, down to her shoes, she felt relief and security.  It was true that he was looking to care for the injury on her leg; fresh bandages covered it and for that she was grateful.  If The Beast had told him where it was he still needed to take off her jeans to get to the wound.  She was willing to excuse this trespass since he was doing something positive for her.  Whether he could be trusted when he insisted there was no molestation in less obvious ways, however, was information only he knew and she hated him for the uncertainty.

_The Beast would kill him if he touched me!  I’ll see to it!_

More rumbling came from her stomach and her eyes shifted to the breakfast he’d left behind for her.  Gathering it all, she wrestled free of the blankets, hopped to the broken window and with a vociferous grunt, threw everything outside, hoping the water bottle split.  The resilient bottle bounced then rolled away from the banana and granola bar but did not break open.  How disappointing.

Her bag of supplies was beside the chair Dennis used.  She wanted nothing of his, not while she had her own things and maybe not even after hers were used up.  The last thing she wanted was to be beholden to someone she despised.  First, she downed one of her bottles of water to the last third, the scratchiness in her dry throat slaked and soothed.  Two packages of trail mix were delicacies that were greedily devoured.  She finished off the water, stuffed the empty packages into the bottle then stretched out across the mattress, drawing the blankets back over her head, to hide from the world.

As she lazed, remorse ebbed over her for what she did.  _I don’t have much but you’re welcome to everything I have._ She sighed and considered hobbling down to salvage the food but with fatigue set in and a split stitch she wasn’t up to par with moving greater distances.  The short expanse between the bed and window was enough to exert what little strength her rest restored.

She realized that Dennis left to buy things and her money at once rushed into mind.  With a potent shot of adrenaline pumping through her veins, she hunted for her cash and found the wad at the very bottom of the bag, where she knew it hadn’t been before.  Her heart sank and rage boiled her blood.  He took her money.  Goddamn it.  He took her money, left her and was not returning.  Son of a bitch!  The bastard!

“Keep a cool head, Casey,” she muttered.

If he took any of the money, he’d left most of it behind.  Shocking enough, a speedy count through the bills revealed that he hadn’t touched her stash at all, except to put it farther out of the reach of a possible thief.  The discovery only made her feel worse.  He took her in, cleaned her wound, guarded her while she slept despite his own exhaustion and offered her a share of rations he could not spare.  Conflicted between holding him accountable for his previous actions and pardoning him for providing needed care, she exhaled and her breath blew back a lock of hair that had been in her eyes.

To be clear to herself on which way she wanted to stand, she reminded herself of what he did to her and the other girls and formed a more profound distrust in him.  He was a vile person.  A kidnapper, a pervert, a child molester, a rapist, a violent, vicious monster.  It pissed her off that The Beast would enlist someone as dangerous as Dennis to wait for her.  Dennis knew how to follow orders and was the hard ass protector, who was a renowned immovable object in every aspect.  Except when it came to the teenage girl demographic, of which she was a part.  He could not be trusted.  Certainly The Beast knew that, right?

He tried to rape Marcia.  She knew he molested her and put his filthy hands on her beyond that closed door; the amber drops of piss violently shaken from his hand after he carried her back in were evidence of his offense.  An experienced molester, he knew how to coerce his victims, as she knew from the personal experience of stripping for him because her clothes were “dirty”.

_You’ve got a crumb on your shirt!  Please take it off.  Just… Just take it off…._

Casey’s face twisted into a grimace as, in hindsight, the double meaning behind the request dawned on her.  Whether or not there was a crumb _on_ her shirt meant nothing to the Crumb who wanted his hand _up_ her shirt.

But the joke was on him with her.  She was ashamed of her body then and well-versed at concealment beneath numerous layers.  He must’ve liked the control and power he had over young teens and probably had no interest in women his own age.  Did he at least have interest in girls who were of age or was it just in the underage vulnerable ones?  His preference was definitely underage girls.  Just like John.  Her fingers dug into the blankets, imagining they were sinking into the soft flesh of his throat and eyes until he was dead.  Whether it was Dennis or John who was her target not even she knew.  What she did know was the longer she dwelled on things, the more she wanted to take it out on Dennis.  She wasn’t the same person as she was when in his captivity, he would learn.

The only drawback was killing Dennis also meant killing The Beast.  The Beast didn’t deserve to die.  He’d saved her.  By being here she understood her body was his reward for acting as her savior and she not only accepted that but was eager for it.  She only needed to put up with Dennis until The Beast re-emerged from his slumber.  Like it or not, Dennis was vital to The Beast since Dennis seemed to be The Beast’s ambassador and likely his only means for acquiring Food.  But she was hopeful that she’d wise The Beast up to how dangerous Dennis truly was.  If she was smart, she could convince The Beast to never give Dennis The Light again.

****

The air conditioning on the bus was broken and the vehicle was packed with commuters on their way to work.  Already the early October heat was uncommonly stifling and a large headcount in close quarters made Dennis desperate.  For the most part the other miserable passengers were like him.  But an unwashed body he could not identify was nearby, polluting the atmosphere with offensive body odor that made him regret leaving his mask behind.  He tried to distill the stench from being breathed in by using the collar of his shirt but it did little to help.

Then there was the person next to him.  Originally he was in the aisle seat to discourage anyone from sitting beside him.  But soon the bus was overcrowded and people were standing, so he had to sacrifice the aisle seat for the window seat when asked.  With the bus jamming so many in, he opted for the lesser of two evils and let the person have the aisle seat, that way he only needed to be touched by _that_ man instead of the multitude standing in the aisle.

Still, when the man’s leg unintentionally rested against his, Dennis flinched and brought his leg closer in, away from the other man.  The Yellow Rag was tight in his grip and he resisted with all of his willpower to not wipe his leg off with it.  Without doubt, his seat mate would find the gesture extremely offensive.  Dennis was sure the man was no physical match if the situation escalated to violence but keeping himself at a low profile was paramount.  He’d just need to deal with the disgust and not think of the unwanted microscopic creatures transferring over to him from the man.

Then someone started a coughing fit and he could take it no longer.  Signaling the bus to stop, he upended the person beside him in a frantic motion to stand with an apologetic, “Excuse me” muttered to the germ carrier in passing.  With the Yellow Rag around his hand, he held on to the overhead rail and backs of seats, shoving his way through the mob as the bus decelerated to a halt.  The doors hissed open and he raced down the stairs and out into open air like his clothes were on fire.  A moment was taken to close his eyes and breathe, inhaling deeply through the nose so the air going into his lungs could be filtered clean.  Public transportation was a loathed hot bed of disease and germs but was at its mercy if he needed to travel far.

It took several minutes but once he calmed himself, he realized he still had a fair amount of walking to do until he left the residential neighborhood he was now stranded in.  As long as he was away from that contaminated bus he didn’t care.  He wanted to peel back several layers of skin to get all of their filth off of him.  And he had no way of taking a shower.  The world had been an unkind place for him since he left his protective lair at the zoo.  His home there had been cluttered but clean.

_Dirty, dirty, dirty!  Filthy, disgusting!  The germs are all over me!_

In a tornado of bright, cleansing color, the Yellow Rag was used to clean off his hands, legs and backside with industrious effort, his face wrinkled with anguish.  Once he started wiping away his invisible foes, his compulsion got the better of him and it became an urgent, distressed _need_ to wipe his entire body down.  Public transportation was such a necessary evil and a pure torment for him.  He may as well had been in a dungeon in the Tower of London as to be on a crowded bus.

“Are you alright?”

The inquisitive voice roused him to stop and stand to his full height.  He never startled, it was an upshot of leading a life of abuse where he always anticipated and prepared for the worst and met challenges head-on.  However, he internally reprimanded himself for allowing his germaphobia to rule him where his weakness could be seen.  The appearance of being normal _must_ be upheld in public as much as possible.  Nothing screamed for attention more than a frantic man mopping himself down with a yellow rag.

“I’m fine,” he said, his voice stern, eyeing the speaker with his signature don’t fuck with me glower.

He was an older man, Dennis estimated close to twenty to twenty-five years older, a rugged bald man who, Dennis felt disconcerted in noticing, could have been a vision of his future self without the glasses.  Or maybe the lost father or an uncle of Kevin’s who none of the alters were aware of.

“You look like you’re having trouble,” the man pursued doggedly, a suspicious gleam in his squinted eyes that alarmed Dennis.  “Is there something I can help you with?”

“No, I’m fine,” replied Dennis slowly, his the severity of his expression deepening.  Call it an animal instinct infused within him by The Beast but he sensed this man was someone he needed to be extra careful around.  “Thanks but I’m fine.”

“Do I know you from somewhere?  You look familiar…”

“We’re new to the area.  We just moved in two nights ago.”

The man eye him quizzically.  “We?”

Dennis flinched internally.  He hadn’t meant to speak in the plural.  It was a habit; he always thought of himself in the collective because he was the mouthpiece for the other alters when in The Light .  He existed to think of the survival and security of everyone and his self-preservation meant the preservation of all.  Due to years of this habit, he recuperated with a fast amendment.

“My girlfriend and I.  She sent me out to get a few things but I’m…”

“Lost?”

“Yeah.”

“Where are you trying to go?”

Damn.  Dennis had no real specific destination.  Just a corner store might have been all he needed.

“Any place I can buy small necessities.  Toiletries, cleaning supplies, maybe a little food.  A convenience store or corner market should suffice.  Do you know how far one is and in which direction?”

“There’s a CVS a few blocks in the opposite direction you were walking.”

The distrust in the man’s eyes intensified as did Dennis’ defensive scowl.  They were two bulls sizing each other up in at opposite ends of a pasture.

“Story of my life,” Dennis played off.  “I just got off a bus so I didn’t see it.  I thought that there was one here.  Everything looks very different at night.”

“It does.”  The man took a step toward him, extending a hand either in an offer of friendship or a pissing contest.  Dennis staked his life on the latter and an instant red flag raised like the hairs on his arms.  Thank god he had enough foresight to remove his glasses to thwart identification before venturing out on this excursion.  “My name’s David.  David Dunn.”

Dennis stood his ground at the advance but displayed his hand wrapped in the Yellow Rag to Dunn, saying, “I’m sorry, I can’t.  Things are difficult for me.  That’s why I had to get off the bus.”

Dunn, staring at the hand in its protective rag, nodded and retracted his handshake as if the presence of the rag was a natural fixture that needed no further explanation.  The earth was hot because the sun was in the sky, after all.

“I should go,” Dennis said, breaking the short silence that divided them.  “My girlfriend will get anxious if I’m not back soon and I don’t wanna worry her.”

“I understand.”  As Dennis turned to walk in the direction Dunn pointed him in, he was stopped when the older man added, “By the way, I didn’t catch your name.”

“Dennis.”

“Well, Dennis, if you’ve joined the neighborhood, I guess I’ll see you around.”

“You probably will.  See ya.”

Dennis walked away coolly despite the heat from Dunn’s watchful drilling into his back.

****

David Dunn kept a skeptical eye upon the stranger walking away, wondering what his story was.  A curiosity mounted the moment he stepped off his stoop and caught the odd sight of a man furiously brushing himself off with a hand wrapped in a yellow cloth, a curiosity that was reinforced the longer they stayed in each other’s presence.  There was something he didn’t like about this Dennis character.  The angry tough guy expression on his face, his imposing stature, the way he didn’t relent ground when David stepped forward, that he refused to shake hands.

For a fleeting moment, he wondered if the newcomer could be that serial killer he planned to start tracking once the store was set up and running but shook it off almost as soon as it entered his mind.  How tough could the guy be if he was afraid to touch everything?  This Horde creep was on the run, it wasn’t logical that Dennis No Surname would be capable of tolerating life out on the streets as a wanted criminal if he was an admitted germaphobe.

Other than the uncommon germaphobic behavior, there was a grim sense that something drastic was off with the guy, something underneath his obvious and painful social awkwardness.  The bandages on his arm and neck didn’t go unnoticed either.  The visceral warning was the reason David put his hand out, hoping the man would take the bait.  One slight touch, even a brief flutter of his fingertips across Dennis No Surname’s skin, would’ve ignited the second sight that exposed any wicked deeds or dark secrets to the light of David’s eyes.

An empathetic touch was only a back-up to David’s gut extinct, after all.  The feeling seemed to be mutually sensed too, as the newcomer could’ve been using the germaphobia as a convenient excuse.  Maybe he wasn’t a germaphobe at all.  He would ask Joseph to run a check on the guy later.

Thought of his son had him checking his watch.  He needed to meet his son Joseph at the diner for a quick breakfast before getting to work.  They were a mere few days away from opening their security shop and shelves needed to be stocked, deliveries were due, displays had to be set up.  A very busy day was ahead of him that needed to be focused on, not a random weirdo who was afraid of germs.

“You’re still here,” his wife Audrey exclaimed as she bounded down the stairs and to the sidewalk where he stood.  “I thought you left a while ago.”

“I meant to but I got tied up.”

“Something wrong?”

“Be careful out here by yourself.  Something isn’t right in the neighborhood.”

“Did you see something?”

_If only, Audrey…_

“Just a hunch I got.  We’ve got a serial killer roaming around.  Can’t be too careful these days.”

With no time to waste and taking a leap of faith that she was safe from the newcomer or The Horde or any other danger for now, he walked toward the bus stop and his busy day.

****

Dennis perused the first aid aisle of the CVS, trying to think of anything he and the girl may need to help heal other than what was already in the little red shopping basket clutched in his hand wrapped with the Yellow Rag.  So far he had a large tube of Neosporin, two bottles of rubbing alcohol, cotton pads, more gauze and tape, bandages, a small pair of scissors, and a package of allergy pills in case the dust in the hideout irritated their sinuses.  What else might they need?

He added several large packages of baby wipes, a pair of big hand sanitizers, a few containers of lemon scented Chlorox wipes, a few packs of batteries for his electric razor, and four bottles of cold water with numerous bags of various nuts and dried fruits.  That should be enough for now; he’d have trouble carrying anything more.  Already his arms, normally strong enough to carry far more than what he had, complained from the weight of his purchases and he had so far to get back.

On his way to the cashier, he passed the candy aisle and an idea struck him.  Taking a detour, he stood and eyed the chocolate.  If there was only one thing he knew about the female gender it was that they regarded chocolate as food of the gods.  A bar should be an ideal peace treaty between him and the girl.  It would be a lie if he denied his want to make amends and missing this chance to have the friend he greatly needed would destroy him.  He was _dying_ for the chance to be vulnerable and understood by a trustworthy person in the absence of Dr Fletcher.  If The Beast trusted the girl, then Dennis had no cause for doubt.  He _had_ to try to prove himself worthy of her friendship.  Winning her over with chocolate was a good start, or at least as good as he could think of, so he chose the largest Hershey bar available then went to pay.

Upon seeing his hurt arm, the cashier packed each bag lightly, a small act of kindness for which he was grateful.  He thanked her and walked away but turned back and asked impulsively, “Where can I buy a coffee around here?”

He knew his roughed-up appearance was the reason why the girl gave him an expression that was both sympathetic and frightened.  Underneath that he detected a hint of lust when her eyes fixated on his bicep which, despite the long sleeve covering it, was a predominate feature.  Disappointment stung his heart when her widened, terror-struck eyes fell on his bandages before looking him in the hardened eye and directing him to a bakery on the corner.  He thanked her again and left, saddened in her assumption that he was a bad person.  Unless, he wondered, she recognized him.

_I’m not bad_ , he explained in his mind.  _I’m just the one who does the dirty work!_

Once outside and away from her harsh judgment, he relaxed and sighed, gazing in the direction she had pointed him in.  It wasn’t far, but he was so depleted he knew sitting for a while would not be a smart choice.  He was liable to fall asleep then get kicked out of the bakery after being mistaken for a vagrant.  Deciding to forgo the indulgent treat, he headed back toward the bus stop.  His already laden arms couldn’t bear supporting anything else, even as trite as a cup of coffee.  He’d hate to look forward to a hot cup only to drop it on the ground because he was unable to hold onto it.

The sharp grievance of the arm injury reinforced that thought and he grimaced.  It hadn’t bothered him for a while because he was so adamantly engrossed in the girl’s wellbeing that he neglected his own.  Fatigue weighed heavier than ever on his abused body and he yearned to simply go home, lie down next to the girl and sleep.  Since he and The Beast shared bodies, he trusted that she would refrain from harming him while he slept.  But that would be the extent of her kindness towards him.  She justifiably hated him. 

How did he expect her to react to him?  It was his fault she had been robbed of a normal life, mistaken for Impure and almost eaten by The Beast.  Why would she greet him with loving arms after everything he did?  He wanted to offer her his loyalty and friendship, even if he didn’t know how.  For if The Beast called her extraordinary then Dennis believed it despite his rising doubts in the other alter’s prophecies. 

In hindsight, she had been the smart one, adapting to the situation and playing the others like a violin.  Even Patricia had not been immune to this girl’s wits.  There was little doubt that she feared them collectively but she had been so terrified of him in particular that, in thinking back, Dennis realized the girl had never spoken a single word to him.  She stayed quiet and cowed to the person who represented violence although he had not been violent with her or her friends.  She was merely giving him what he wanted:  submissive obedience while playing her cards against The Horde.  Dennis confessed to himself that he admired her.  She’d played the hand she was dealt very well.

Now he had to tolerate her damning silence and craftiness all over again.  Injured, exhausted, waiting for The Beast and out of options, she would undoubtedly stay.  At least not for a while.  If she didn’t, she’d be easy to find because she was unable to travel far on her leg.  Right now, contending with his own recovery was more urgent than dealing with the obstinacy a troubled girl who gave him an unwelcome reception.  He had twenty-three other people to think of in his own wellbeing.

When he returned he would try sleeping in the chair so he wouldn‘t disturb her.  She needed rest as much as he did and he needed to take the very best care of her until The Beast emerged again.  He yearned to make The Beast proud of him and to prove his worth in being chosen to assist in their sacred cause.  If he could do that, then he could gain power over The Beast then he could maybe convince the wayward alter that they didn’t need to kill to prove themselves.  This girl could be his bargaining chip.  Protecting his mate was the most immediate need other than healing; this was a time of healing for them all before they made their next move forward.  Dennis only had to figure out what his next personal step would be.

Since The Beast nixed Dennis’ suggestion to become a farmhand in the peace of bucolic Buck’s County, he needed to do what was best here.  Every hunted animal knew there was safety in numbers so staying in the urban sprawl may have been for the best.  Further preparations for their new lives needed ironing out.  They needed a more secure lair, an off-the-books job, fake identifications established.  Then, after settled, it would be hunting time again.  The Beast had an order for ten to twelve worthless Impure and to complete that task was an insurmountable quantity of work.  He sighed, already beleaguered from the amount of responsibility he was expected to undertake.  None of the others would appreciate his hard efforts, he expected.

He sighed, wishing he could go back to his old life at the zoo.  No, he didn’t do anything spectacular or life altering but he enjoyed the job, worked hard and received praise for it.  Not having that life anymore was a sacrifice for the recognition of greatness he desired most, of exposing the world to The Beast and all that they could do.  He needed to leave that other life behind and try not to miss it.  Progress is not made by contented people.

The bus stop was now a few blocks away but it felt as if he was walking cross-country to California.  His legs were jelly and he was on the verge of collapse if he didn’t sit down soon.  There was no knowing when the bus was supposed to arrive and the stop was just a sign without a shelter or bench, forcing him to stand.  Damn his life!  Releasing a long, frustrated exhale, he placed his bags down at his feet and counted out the return fare so it would be ready and in his hand before boarding.

The stop back was directly across the street from where he was dropped off earlier:  across from the house where he met David Dunn.  With nothing else to do, he occupied his mind to ward off sleep by scrutinizing the modest house, deciding it was nothing remarkable.  His skin crawled when he imagined the dreary life Dunn must lead:  married, playing out the dullest existence of an ordinary cycle of work, chores, and child rearing.  A life Dennis could not comprehend or desire.  There was no glory in dish washing and child rearing.

Maybe the house misled Dennis.  Maybe Dunn tried his hand at glory and failed.  Maybe scandal was once there.  Dunn might’ve been divorced and dating an acrobatic barely legal who transformed his bedroom into a den of sinful delights.  It was a slightly better scenario, one Dennis could relate to, but still nothing extraordinary.  He didn’t know how people like Dunn could lead pointless lives of routine mediocrity with no achievements of value.  It would be tantamount to death if ever he was trapped in such a dead end existence.  Such a pitiful waste of potential.  A low growl came from somewhere and he discovered it was from his own throat.

Suffering must’ve occurred in some way on Dunn’s mundane path.  The most credible way was through child rearing.  How much did he sacrifice to provide a happy life of oblivion to his children?  This wasn’t an affluent neighborhood, but any children Dunn might’ve had could be living the good life on Society Hill with their mother at their father’s expense.  If so, they were asleep and prospective Sacred Food.  He would commit this house to memory, for future reference.

The roar of an engine and squeal of bad brakes announced the arrival of the bus and he bent to grab his bags while a few passengers got off.  He waited for them, a pair of young adults holding hands, to pass before climbing onboard.  Handing the driver his fare, he turned to face the blessedly almost empty bus.  Plenty of window seats were available and he took one at the center, placing his bags in the seat next to him to once again deter anyone from sitting there.

The ride was eternal in his struggle against sleep.  A number of times his body startled with a jolt when he sensed himself slipping away.  His eyes opened wide to help stay awake and he resisted the nagging urge to rub them, which would make them more tired  His hands needed cleaning before he touched them anyway, or else he’d risk conjunctivitis.

It was a great mercy that the bus didn’t stop often and when his stop at long last came, he willed adrenaline through his suffering muscles and disembarked, relieved that there were only a few more blocks to walk before reaching the hideaway.  Through iron will and determination that distance was covered quickly and, when the door to his sanctuary was in sight, he considered it safe enough to drop the bags, unwind the Yellow Rag from his hand, and search through his purchases for one of the sanitizers.  Ripping off the shrink wrap, he pumped a generous amount into the palm of his hand and slathered it all over, industriously scrubbing it in like a surgeon washing up for an operation until it was dry.

During this act of sanitation, something on the ground farther up caught his eye.  With a groan, he walked toward the object the sun glinted off of.  It was an unopened bottle of water.  Next to it were a granola bar, also unopened, and a banana.  His heart sank and he frowned in agitation.  Damn her.  God _damn_ her.  The water and granola were unscathed so he placed them in one of his bags but the banana was split and unsalvageable to all but the colony of ants swarming in to claim it from him.  His jaw clenched and lips thinned in rage.  They couldn’t afford this act of childish insolence.

Stomping up the stairs like the irate giant climbing a beanstalk, he entered the room very much like the monster he spent his childhood evading.  Seething, he loomed over the girl, chest heaving while she peered up at him with large, defiant doe-like eyes gleaming with both hate and fear  His own eyes reciprocated rage and a turmoil he tried his best to conceal.  The things he wanted to lash out at her about would’ve ruined any chance at winning her over.

“We don’t have much,” he said evenly, holding his temper when he wanted to explode.  “We can’t waste anything we have.  It has to last until I find work.  If you do that again, I’m gonna restrain you.  I hope you don’t test me.  You know I mean what I say.  I don’t wanna do somethin’ like that to you.  I want us to be on good terms.”

He stepped back, rubbing his hand over the top of his head, thinking as he cooled down.  Deciding she didn’t deserve the Hershey bar, he sat with a sigh in the chair.  She retreated into her corner away from him and he groaned not because of the temptation of her innocence but because of his indecisiveness on how to handle her when he was too tired to think.  They sat in stand-off silence and he rested his head back against the wall, closing his eyes.

Couldn’t she at least grant the decency of treating him like a human being and _say something_?  He was a person too and deserved to be treated like one.  His hope for a friend withered like a sick rose before his eyes with that protracted unwillingness to speak.

Perhaps, then, it was frustration or exhaustion that brought the next words out of his mouth.

“When The Beast said you were comin’ to be with us I couldn’t wait for you to arrive,” he confessed, his tongue heavy with weariness.  “I thought---“  He stopped before he finished with _I’d have someone to talk to_ and continued, “I thought you would behave this time.  I _don’t_ wanna hurt you.  Please.  Cooperate.  We both need to heal.  We can’t if we’re at each other’s throats.  Please… just give me time to heal…”

Before he could prevent it, a tide of blackness then drowned him.

****

_On their sixth secret lunch date, the tension mounted among them in a pleasantly torturous way for Dennis.  He stayed quiet, head leaning back against the tree as he feigned disinterest but was engrossed with Maya’s hand as it strayed up Bryn’s thigh and remained there while they gossiped about their friends.  The age gap and their busy social lives were completely unrelatable to him but they were an evanescent addition to his life, a temporary stroke of luck for the lonely man.  They were magnificent creatures and he enjoyed the views they gifted him with._

_Today Maya caught him staring down her unbuttoned shirt and cracked an ebullient, mischievous smile._

_“Dennis,” she addressed, knocking him from his riveted leer.  “I’ve been_ dying _to ask.  You know how you have those other people inside you?  Do any of them ever come out at the worst times?”_

_“What do you mean?”  His brow creased harshly again, preparing for anything that may come out of her mouth.  She was the bold one and he had an idea what she planned to ask._

_“Like when you’re making love.  Have any of them ever taken over during sex?”_

_And there it was, the topic he expected and his throat tightened.  Did he really want to let them lead him down this dark path?_

_The girls hung on in anticipation for a response.  He cleared his throat and forced them to wait longer before answering, “Not that I recall.  The emotions are too powerful for them to take The Light away.  .I personally haven’t had sex in a very long time.  I’ve just re-emerged after ten years.  The one before me had sexual relationships with other men but I don’t know about the experiences.”_

_The girls both cocked eye brows at this intimate disclosure and he regretted saying it as soon as it left his mouth.  Men weren’t supposed to say such things and usually Dennis didn’t.  But in finding himself with companions who wanted to genuinely get to know him, his need to be validated opened him up more than he liked._

_“Do you_ all _like the same things sexually?”_

_Frowning, he shook his head.  The other alters scorned him for his preferences but that was what he’d keep from these girls till death.  “It’s none of my business.”_

_“How about_ you _?  What do_ you _like?”_

_He kept his sullen reserve, his stern coldness deepening as he stared at the girl in silent warning.  He wasn’t telling her anything.  He was going to be good._

_Maya did not take the same vow, regrettably._

_“Have_ you _ever been with another man?”_

_Inside he was a mass of boiling turbulence but his demeanor was dead calm as he folded his hands over his stomach and exercised his Fifth Amendment right._

_“Bryn and I have been dating for two years,” persisted Maya, taking the other girl’s hand into hers.  “But we like guys too.  Sometimes we let guys join in for a while.  We don’t commit to any of them; we’re committed only to each other.  But a guy helps spice things up for us.  As a man, y_ ou _know how nice it is to have variety.”_

This is not happening! _Dennis thought to himself._  I’m going to be good!  I need to be good!

_“That was why I asked if you were with another man.  To see how tolerant you are of those things.”_

_Unable to speak, Dennis waited to see what came next, trying to comprehend their inclusion of him.  Maya did not disappoint.  Reaching over, she unfastened Bryn’s shirt down to her concave stomach, exposing her lacey bra and the unblemished skin as ivory as parchment._

_“Do you like watching two girls?”_

_Was_ this _a passive aggressive invitation?  Dennis inhaled sharply and shook his head, wanting to turn away but his eyes anchored to the glorious sight before him.  He couldn’t help himself no matter how hard he fought against it.  Maya untucked one of Bryn’s small breasts, the light pink nipple springing to life from exposure even in the heat.  A quick glance at him from Maya to make sure he was watching before her tongue laved over Bryn’s nipple then she latched on and sucked.  Bryn moaned in response but Dennis moaned louder._

_Hearing him, Bryn laughed and said, “He likes it all right!”_

_Maya rolled her eyes in Dennis’s direction then smiled around Bryn’s nipple._

_“I think we should do something about that,” she suggested.  She kissed the other girl’s nipple before asking, “Would you like to join in, Dennis?”_

_“I_ can’t _get fired, ladies.  We talked about this, Bryn.  Please don’t do this.  Not to_ me _.  Please.”_

_But his voice was thick with need and the perceptive girls recognized it.  Leaving her breast exposed, Bryn crawled toward him, stopped and let her lips linger like forbidden fruit near his._

_“Can I kiss you?”  she whispered._

_The only touch he’d ever known was one that brought negative reinforcement and he flinched at the expectation of the abuse and humiliation he was used to.  The tree preventing him from backing away and he was terrified.  At first, he was unresponsive with the great effort to behave like he was so long ago trained to do, his heart wild in his chest.  And when she pressed her lips against his he was too petrified to refuse but then she coaxed his mouth open with a slip of her tongue and things changed._

No one loves you like your mother loves you…

_The demonic words returned to haunt the abused man who caved to his intrinsic urge and violently shoved the girl away.  He was instantly on his feet, staring with a shell shocked expression at the bewildered girl sprawled on the ground, her bare breast heaving with fear._

_“What the_ hell _?!”  yelled Maya, knocking them both from their stupor as she rushed to help Bryn.  “What is_ wrong _with you?!”_

_Once Dennis’ troubled mind turned deaf to those words and his flesh no longer felt the ghost of a taboo touch, only the present moment and the consequences of his actions were in front of him.  Remorse and terror engulfed him until he was trembling as he and Bryn stared at each other in disbelief.  Wanting to apologize but incapable of forming the words, he simply picked up the plastic container that he’d used for his salad and rushed away._

_“From now on no pity for freaks,” he heard Maya tell Bryn.  What Bryn said in return he did not know because he shut it out.  Whatever it was, it was something painful that he would not be able to bear._

They never cared! _he consoled himself with._ They were only hurtful playing games!

_For the rest of the afternoon, he obsessed over what happened.  He avoided the African Plains in specific but tried to avoid people in general.  He was such a sick man.  He wanted to be a part of the world yet he was unfit to do so.  He didn’t need to be told what he already knew._

_“I warned you those girls would be trouble,” lectured Patricia with a smug tone in her voice that night as he cooked dinner._

_“I know,” he replied with a heavy heart.  “I just wanted—”_

_“I_ know _what you wanted.  By the looks of it, you’re lucky you didn’t get it.”_

_Not wanting to hear any more of her gloating, he snapped on the radio by the sink to drown her out._

_Success in evasion of the girls lasted nearly two weeks before the inevitable day came when he was needed for work in the African Plains.  A water main broke in the giraffe shelter, work he tried to delegate out to others but they were all busy with other projects.  With great reluctance, he grabbed his toolbox and a ladder and felt as if he was taking his final walk to the guillotine._

_When he arrived, she was at the pen, feeding a giraffe that wandered inside to see what the commotion was in its home.  Seeing him, it stretched its slender neck out to be petted and try as he might, he could not deny the animal its indulgence._

_“Dennis…”_

_His muscles tensed at the sound of her voice._

_“I’ll have it fixed and I’ll be away from you as soon as I can.”_

_“I know it wasn’t your fault.  It was mine.  I knew you were uncomfortable and I did it anyway.”_

_“We don’t like to be touched.”_

_“I know and I’m sorry.  I’m so very sorry.”  A pause settled between them when the giraffe nudged Bryn’s hand for more attention.  “A girl at school gets bullied because she doesn’t like to be touched.  But I saw scars on her body in the locker room when she thought she was alone.  Like I said.  People shouldn’t be bullied for what they can’t help.    I should’ve been more compassionate.  I know DID is caused by severe trauma.”_

_Not wanting to have this conversation, Dennis looked away to the broken water main that needed his attention.  His awkwardness was breaking him down inside.  Only hope kept him in place when his instincts demanded he run._

_“Maya and I really did want to be friends.  Maybe more.  She would_ kill _me if she knew I was talking to you.  She’s angry, but I think I might be able to cool her down after I explain.  I know I pushed you before you pushed me.  Please forgive me?”_

_His glare deepened upon her._

_“You didn’t know.  There’s nothin’ to forgive.”_

_“Can I make it up to you?”_

_He exhaled sharply.  “Not a good idea, Bryn.”_

_“Dinner tomorrow night.  On me.”_

_“We shouldn’t…”_

_“Just you and me.  We’ll go down to South Street.   There are some nice places there.  It’s far enough away from the zoo.”_

_As much as Dennis wanted to accept, he knew entertaining the idea was dangerous for him.  Possibly for her, too, but she was too young to realize it._

_“Bryn…  I don’t know.”_

_“You liked our lunches until that happened, didn’t you?”_

_It was more of a bid for confirmation than a question.  He sighed and gave it to her with a nod._

_“Nobody wants to be alone all the time, Dennis.  It’s OK to be lonely and want companionship.”_

_“That’s the problem.  I’m_ never _alone.”  Another silence fell, to let what he said sink into the girl’s brain.  “I gotta fix this before they get upset…”_

_“Let me know by the end of the day,” she said.  “I’ll wait for you outside the admin building, where we talked before.”_

_His desire to be included was evident to her and she would continue her pursuit until she succeeded in getting what she wanted from him.  He loved and hated her for the tenacity to coax him from his shell.  As long as she kept her hands to herself and within sight where was the harm?  He wanted to go.  Which meant that evening while walking by the little alcove outside the administration building, he accepted her offer with a slight nod in passing.  Her understanding was conveyed with a bright, excited smile._

****

The yellow warmth enveloped him as if he was wrapped in sunshine and he nestled against the plush shelter covering him.  Ache from his muscles confirmed what he remembered, that he’d fallen asleep while sitting in the chair.  When his eyes fluttered open, he was slouched low with the wall as a pillow, one of the yellow blankets from the bed draped around him.  The girl watched him intently from the mattress.

“You were too heavy for me to move to the bed,” were her words to him for the first time ever.  “I think it would be better if you came here to lay down.  Your muscles won’t recover if you depend on them to hold you up in a chair.”

He corrected his posture, the new stiffness traveling throughout his body and centering in his lower back.  His fingers pressed into his eyes, alarming him when he discovered his glasses were missing.  A quick search of his lap and the surrounding area ended with his eyes upon the girl in both interest and confusion, his brow furrowed.

“I have them,” she answered his soundless question.  “I didn’t want them to break by accident.”

He tried to stand and nearly toppled over but she came to his rescue, steadying him.

“Lie down,” she returned his earlier order to her.  “I’ll watch over you while you sleep.  Like you did for me.”

Debilitated with fatigue, he allowed her to guide him down onto the mattress and help pull the blankets around his body before she replaced him in the chair.

“Thank you,” he muttered, grateful for the chance for proper rest.  Then with an air of suspicion, “Why the change of mind?  About me?  You’ve never said a word to me, even at the zoo.”

She gave an embarrassed smile.  “I did some thinking while you were asleep.  I’m sorry.  About the food.  You’re right, it was stupid of me.  I was a bitch to you when you were trying to help me.”

He only sighed and turned on his side to face her, watching her and trying to decide if she was playing her game with him.  He was not Patricia or Hedwig; she wouldn’t get far with him in that game.  He was the immovable object for a reason.  She felt compelled to continue, like he had, in this unexpected role reversal of muteness and conversation.

“I know you want me to stay off my leg, but I stood at the window for a while when you were gone.  I noticed there are rabbits around.  I could build snares to catch some so we can eat.”

“I’ve never had rabbit before,” he mumbled, tongue sluggish as if drunk on sleeplessness.

“It’s an acquired taste but it’s protein.  And I’ll be careful not to overdo it on my leg.”  She paused then casually informed, “It’s a bite.  On my leg.  The Beast tried to gnaw a chunk off me.”

The infamous glower returned to his face as he slipped into thought.

“He… _bit_ you?”

“You don’t remember?”

“I don’t remember much after boarding the train where he emerged.”

“You remember that I was meant to be his Food, don’t you?”

He shut his eyes, not wanting his mistake thrown in his face.

“I swear, I didn’t know he’d try to eat you.”

“Dennis.  How did you _not_ know he’d try to _eat_ me?”

The bitterness in her voice made him grimace.

“Food could mean other things.”

Her bafflement didn’t set well with him.  She must’ve thought he was a fool.  The Beast and Patricia certainly made him feel like one.  When he expected her to go on a rampage about it, he was surprised when she moved on.

She gestured to his forearm and said, “Everything happened so fast and in the end all I cared about was my own survival.  But I remembered what happened to your arm.”

He remained quiet, waiting for the story.

“He was on the ceiling in the service hall, climbing from the rafters like a monkey.  He broke out the lights with his arm.  With…. _your_ arm.  The glass must’ve cut you deep.”

News of  The Beast purposeful inflicting bodily injury upset Dennis who hoped he was hiding well that he was shaken.  No matter how great and glorious he was and how much The Beast could endure, it was Dennis who was left with the aftermath of The Beast’s self-abuse the following day.  He understood The Beast’s desire to flex his muscle and display his prowess, but some consideration would’ve been nice.

“Where is The Beast?”

“He went dormant for a while.  He left me here to wait for you.”

“Why did he go dormant?”

“He needs more Food.”

The girl didn’t seem thrilled to hear that news.

“Do you know that I shot him?”

“My memories are very vague.  I remember a dull pain, like somethin’ was tryin’ to punch through our body.  But I didn’t know what it was until I took The Light back after we came here.“

“Are you OK?  I mean really.  I know I asked before…”

Slight tension formed between them before he notified:  “The bullets didn’t go through.”

“I saw blood.”

“The bullets didn’t penetrate the muscle too deep so I was able to remove the shrapnel.  A hospital isn’t an option so I did my own surgery here.”

“I can help if you need me to.  My dad taught me first aid and survival skills on our hunting trips.”

“We’re fine.”

“When you change your bandages, let me take a look.  I can check for infection.”

His eyes fixated on the ceiling, fighting his direly needed sleep because he was afraid to wake up to find that this conversation and her concern for him were a me re dream.  But she was as vigilant and adamant as he was when she saw his struggle.

“You need sleep,” she lectured.  “I won’t leave.  I’ll stay in the room the whole time.  It’s too dark out now anyway.”

“I can’t sleep.  I need to stay awake in case there’s trouble.”

“There won’t be trouble.  And if there is, I’ll be waiting.  That’s why I’m here.  To protect the protector.  I’ll be waiting for you when you wake up.”

For the first time in days, Dennis’ worries eased and sleep started to overtake him again.

“Take a blanket if you need one,” he offered, his tongue sluggish.  “Or join me.  I’m so tired… I promise I won’t bother you.”

Her reply fell on deaf ears as he once again succumbed to a blissful state of darkness.

****

Taking meditative breaths in a fraught effort to calm down, Caroline’s body trembled nevertheless.  She occupied her favorite chair in the living room, staring with lifeless eyes out the window, waiting for Keaton and Nikovsky’s arrival.  The note left on Casey’s bed for her was folded and clenched tightly in her fist.  She couldn’t stomach reading it again.  The first time was more than effective in destroying the world she thought she’d built for her family.

_The man who touched me was not Kevin Crumb._

It nauseated Caroline to recount the words.  Everything now linked together.  Casey was more than a handful with her constant detentions and lashing out at others, teachers and fellow students alike.  The secretiveness, the isolation, all attributed to her age were actually signs of worse things.  John had a bevy of excuses and Caroline believed what he fed her.  It was the death of the girl’s father that was the culprit in her own mind.  An optimist to the core, Caroline had no reason to disbelieve her husband and continued to treat Casey with tenderness and patience, waiting for her to come around like an abused animal eventually comes to when treated with kindness.

She guessed that Casey was being bullied at school and often tried to discuss it with her.  But her niece spat cruel words at her too, before storming to her room and separating them with the slam of her door.  Once she asked if a lock could be installed on the door to her room that Caroline refused on the grounds that she didn’t like what locked doors implied in her home.  For whatever good her open door policy meant, look what It wrought instead.  Her stomach churned knowing the real purpose in that request and she wanted to find that bastard and castrate him.

Casey must’ve _hated_ her for not seeing what was going on.  Caroline was ashamed for being so goddamn stupid.  A niece only by marriage, the girl was still very loved by Caroline, despite her problematic behavior.  Sharing Casey’s status as an only child, Caroline didn’t have nieces or nephews of her own and thank god she and John never had children.  Welcoming Casey into her home was a godsend, or so she thought.  It was her responsibility to provide the girl refuge and her treacherous husband was busy laying waste to their lives.  The cutting kit and the note left behind stole the breath from her lungs, faintness washing over her.  Sitting on the bed, she stared at the note with the same thousand yard stare that was characteristic of Casey.  Denial threatened to rule her heart as it certainly must for all women in this situation; she could pack the things away, burn the note and pretend like nothing happened, that the girl either ran away or was taken by Crumb again.  Her life could resume like normal.  Nobody would ever know the difference.

In the end, she didn’t.  Astronomical self control prevented her from racing downstairs and wielding the box cutter against John in what would be a fight to the death.  She’d kill the dirty son of a bitch if she went down at that moment.  How was she going to handle this?  She owed Casey the justice she never gave before while John was owed heavy comeuppance.  The cutting kit was hidden away to permit Casey the small dignity of this secret.  The girl had been through far more than her share of hell.  She wouldn’t be put through any more than necessary if Caroline could help it.  John’s reaction to being nailed for something of this caliber was unpredictable, she realized.  Since he was a very large man, she decided it wise to take something to protect herself with and took back the box cutter for her protection.

Confronting John about his crime was an ugly affair, as expected.  Before going downstairs, she snapped a photo of the note as a backup plan in case John got his grimy hands on the original.  Then, so distraught that she left her phone on the bed by mistake, she went on her warpath.

“Casey’s gone, she’s not here.”

“What do you mean?”

“Her room is empty.”

John gaped at her with combined fear and worry.  “She _has_ to be there.”

“She’s not.  And don’t look like you’re worried that Kevin Crumb is responsible for her disappearance.”

John’s hypocritical indignity infuriated her.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“More like what the hell is _Casey_ talking about,” she corrected and slammed the note against his barrel chest.  “You son of a bitch,” she spat as his eyes skimmed the words on the paper.

The change in his demeanor was quick as the note fluttered forgotten to the floor, a feather heavy with the weight of accusation.

“You don’t believe this bullshit, do you?”  John’s voice was much softer now in an attempt at persuasion but this time Caroline saw through the serrated charisma that people often favored him for.  She knew his true self now.  “From day one she’s been trouble, Caroline.  You know that.  God knows what that crazy bastard did to mess with her head.  She’s trying to drive us apart.  She’s always been a wedge between us.”

“Don’t you _dare_ do this, you bastard.  Don’t you dare try.  I may have been stupid and blind then but this note answers everything now.  You’re not sweet talking your way out of this.  How long has this been going on?”

“She…”

“She _what_ , John?  Led you on?  How long?”  He refused to answer but she pressed:  “ _HOW LONG?!_ ”

He didn’t answer but she saw his mind working to formulate an excuse or fabricate a story so she guessed for him.

“Was it when she started to develop?  How about when her period started?  She was fair game then?”  Maintaining his silence, he refused to look at her and squirmed like the hooked worm he was.  She understood his body language very well.  “Was it after we took her in?  You said yourself that she’s been trouble since day one.  Before her father died?  It was, wasn’t it?  She’s your _niece_ , John!  Your brother’s child!  And this started when she was a very small child!  You goddamn _monster_!  She was _mutilating_ herself because of you!  Jesus fucking Christ!”

“If you would let me explain…”

“There is _no_ explanation that will ever excuse you for this.  I can’t think of anything or anyone more vile as somebody who molests a child who depended on them.  You have fifteen minutes to pack and leave and I’m being generous.”

“Caroline, come on.  She isn’t even your blood niece.”

“But she was _yours_.”

He approached her, his arms outstretched in supplication until she aimed the opened box cutter at his midriff.

“Seems fitting to gut you with the instrument she cut herself with, doesn’t it?  The police will be here any minute.  I called them before I came down.  I suggest you hurry.”

She nervously paced as he went upstairs to cram a few things into a backpack, like she suspected Casey did before her exodus.  As he walked out the door, he passed her such a chilling, soulless look that it difficult to believe he was the man she’d loved for many years.  He didn’t change, neither suddenly nor gradually.  His mask was just ripped from his face.

She didn’t acknowledge him, but focused straight ahead as if he was a demon she was trying to ignore out of existence, the note she’d picked up from the floor the religious script that exorcised him, held safely in her hand.  Until his truck backed out of the driveway and the house was given to the quiet of a cemetery, she did nothing.

Inside an hour, she watched with a glass of Merlot cradled in her hand as Keaton, on the couch with Nikovsky, read the note before passing it to his partner.  Glad that John didn’t call her bluff about contacting the detectives, she’d returned to Casey’s room to add the box cutter back to the kit and find her phone.  That was when she made good with the threat by making her call.

“Are you certain?”  Keaton inquired as Nikovsky handed the note back.  “She is known to be troubled and she’s spent days with a serial killer.”

“If society believed victims rather than protected criminals we wouldn’t be dealing with this,” Caroline snapped, snatching the note back.  “She used to beg me for locks on her door.  How could I be so stupid?”

“Can you give us any details that might help?”

“It must’ve happened after he returned home for the day.  He needed to be at work by seven in the morning, which meant he got out earlier than I did.  He would’ve been home before she returned from school.  I wouldn’t be home until three hours later.  Poor kid!  Three hours alone with him!  No wonder she always got detention.  She was trying to stay away from him until I was home.”

Horror marred the prettiness of her face when she remembered something.  “Oh god.  There was a time last year I swore she miscarried.  Her period was heavier than usual and she was sickly and pale.  I had to take her to the gynecologist.  I was told she was fine but I suppose telling me would’ve been a breach of confidentiality.  She asked to be put on birth control after that.  I feel so sick.  It was so convenient for him to hide behind her aggressive behavior.”

“Where do you think she might’ve gone?”  Nikovsky asked.

Caroline shook her head.  “I don’t know.  All she had was us.  And we failed her.”

“Don’t be hard on yourself, Mrs Cooke.  You didn’t know.”

“Caroline, please.  I don’t want to be associated with him any more than I have to be.  The only thing that’s going to make me feel better is rectifying this.  She needs to come home where she’ll be safe.  And John needs to be locked away like the animal he is.”

“Is there anywhere you know _he_ might’ve gone?”

Caroline struggled to work through her muddled thoughts.

“There’s a cabin he and Casey’s father owned outside of Philadelphia.  I don’t know where it is.  I stayed out of their hunting business, it wasn’t my thing.  But he knows that would be the first place you’d look so he wouldn’t be stupid enough to actually _go_ there.  Right?”

Keaton shrugged.  “People do stupid things when they’ve done something wrong.  Eventually they hang themselves from the rope you give them.  That’s what we rely on to get them.”

A loud buzzing came from Keaton’s coat pocket and he checked the phone that demanded his attention.

“Excuse me, I need to take this call,” he said, rising from the sofa.

Caroline nodded and Keaton left the house to take the call privately outside.

“Can I offer you anything to drink?”  she asked Nikovsky with a weak smile. 

“Water would be nice,” he answered, flashing a movie star smile that under better circumstances would’ve made her blush.

“You’re in luck.  John stocked our bottled water a few days ago.  I’ll be back.”

John stocked up, yes, but to Caroline’s dismay, the supply in the refrigerator hadn’t been replenished.  She’d have to go out to the garage to restock and fill the detective’s request.  With a sigh and a dash of self-pity, she opened the door that led from the kitchen to the garage and stepped down the stairs.  Snapping on the light, she strolled to the corner where the pallet of bottled water sat, nearly tripping over a stained shop rag that evidently had fallen from John’s work bench.

As she stooped to pick up the rag, she stopped short at the sound of Keaton’s voice.  The detective must’ve walked to a spot he’d designated as safe from eavesdropping.  She couldn’t hear much of anything except muffled one-sided conversation until the name Crumb was mentioned.

Caroline couldn’t resist.  She needed to listen.  The conversation included Casey if it included Kevin Crumb and she was obligated to know what was being said since it pertained to her lost niece.  On her tip toes, she edged toward the closed garage door, stopping when she was near enough to understand what Keaton was saying.

“It shouldn’t take us long to locate him.  We can use the girl to our advantage if we find her first.  The aunt is desperate to get her back.  There’s a deep guilt complex for what happened.  She’ll do everything we ask.  Yes.  I’m sure.  The aunt insists she and her husband were the only people the girl depended on.  But I have a feeling she found a sympathizer in an unlikely source.  Once we have the girl, I’m confident that Crumb will be yours, doctor.”

_Doctor?_   Why would a police detective be on the phone with a doctor?

Caroline listened more closely.

“Yes,” Keaton continued with the mystery caller.  “Just keep your eye out for Dunn.  We can’t deal with both of them at the same time.  Crumb is going to be more than a handful when we apprehend him.  OK.  I’ll keep you posted.”

The end of the call sent her in an expedited retreat and back towards the door to the kitchen.  She almost got there when she remembered the bottle of water and rushed back to snatch one from the pallet before re-entering the kitchen, out of breath and shaken.

For the moment, she tried to push the conversation from her mind and put on an ignorant but very worried countenance, which was not a lie.  Only her reasons for the face were the lie.  When she entered the living room, Nikovsky stood at the shelf in the wall, reading the spines of the books and when he heard her, he turned around to meet her.  Giving him a glittery smile, she handed the water over.

“Sorry, I didn’t have any in the fridge,” she apologized, her voice breathless with fear.

The front door opened and Keaton rejoined them with an apology of his own.

“We’ll need to take that note Casey wrote,’ he told her.  “It’s evidence for the case we’ll build against your husband.”

She passed it over, noticing with consternation that her hand was shaking when she did.  Keaton noticed too.

“Everything will be fine,” he assured her, mistaking why her reach was tremulous.  “We’re going to do a search on that cabin.  We’ll keep in touch and let you know.  If you think of anything or if he shows up, call us immediately.”

She nodded and replied, “I will.”

Down went the rest of the wine she’d left on the coffee table as she stood at the window, watching the detectives leave.  A review of everything went through her thoughts.  She’d called them for help and to ease her mind only to have their visit leave her more unsettled than she was before.  She didn’t like what she’d heard.  Casey was only a pawn to them in some game she wasn’t privy to knowing.  It appeared they planned to use the girl as bait for a dangerous serial killer yet somehow she sensed it might’ve been worse than that.  Whatever their intentions were or who the doctor was, their unknown motives made her anxious.  She needed to find Casey, fast.  The only way she could think of to do that was to hire her own private investigator.

She no longer trusted Keaton and Nikovsky.  And why did the last name Dunn sound so familiar to her?

****

There had been a chance, and maybe that was why the incident disturbed David so profoundly.  Always in the back corner of his mind, the memory came to light in the dark of sleep until he hated to sleep.

_I had a bad dream._

He would tell Audrey who would then comfort him with a sleepy embrace and he would nestle close, like a child fleeing the terrors of a closet monster into the arms of his mother.  Except this was reality, the monsters were human and it was his job to catch them.  Those that came to him in the night were the monsters he missed, the ones who would never release him.

The boy’s screams reached out to him like invisible arms, an indirect plea for help that he chose to turn his back to.  A single touch, a rough bump of shoulders during a rushed passing in a crowded corridor was all that was necessary to see what she was doing to her son.  He was only a boy of nine, maybe ten, and though his mouth was shut, his screams were deafening.  For a moment, David considered going after the woman and removing the boy from her custody, even turning to do so, but as they disappeared in the throng, he realized the folly of taking action.

What reason could he give the authorities?  He touched the woman and saw her doing cruel, obscene things to her son?  She would deny it and why wouldn’t she?  She only walked past him holding her son’s hand.  David had no tangible reason to apprehend her.  His explanation would’ve had him locked up in an asylum.  He was as helpless as the child she abused.  He couldn’t help the boy.  Without the ability to prove anything, he had to let the woman go, as much as he hated to.

That boy never left David, even almost two decades later.  Often the boy would come into dreams that played out the unspeakable suffering in various ways.  When David turned away, the boy forced him to look, then led him by the hand to the next violent story and then the next like he was led away from his would-be savior by the monster who tormented him.  Daylight never chased the ghostly memory away.  David was forever held hostage by the one who got away.

He wondered if the boy survived the brutal abuse and what type of life he lived now if he did.  David had a secret fantasy that things turned out differently that emolliated the guilt, one where he got the boy away from the woman and brought him home to live with the Dunns.  He and Audrey adopted the boy as their own.  Joseph had him as a playmate and sibling, Audrey had the second child she’d always wanted and the boy lived in the peace and happiness every child deserved.

No matter what the boy’s name was in his previous life, his name would be changed to Robert, after Audrey’s father.  David imagined ball games and camping trips, blanket forts and bunk beds, movie nights where the bowls would overflow with popcorn and the boys would fall asleep together on the floor under a shared quilt.  Joseph was lucky to have those things but the addition of the rescued Robbie would make them even more meaningful.  Helping a child who was not your own was a selfless act of kindness.

Another bad dream about Robbie jarred him from sleep tonight.  Groaning, David sat up and watched Audrey sleep beside him.  He’d always wanted to tell his wife about the boy, only he planned to tweak the story with a fib that he witnessed the abuse.  He wanted to tell her that this boy was the root of a large percentage of the bad dreams that she saved him from.  A few attempts were made, just like the ones to tell her about his secret identity.  Not having the heart, he fell short in doing so.

An image of the boy’s unforgettable face formed within his mind and was so vivid that David swore he saw the child standing beside the bed.  Now, as then, the weight of his guilt crushed him.  Bruises blossomed across the boy’s arms and face as tears threatened to spill from David’s eyes.  Then the boy struck the fatal blow to any peace David acquired for the night when he delivered a single question:

_“Why didn’t you save me?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for this update being so long in the posting. I'm currently working very hard to make a major life change. Despair not, for this story is well over 300 pages (and counting), all written pre-Glass; it's finding time to edit it that's proving difficult. But with so much already written, you're guaranteed to get new chapters for quite some time to come. Just please be patient, as my life is preparing for a huge transition. I owe a few of you responses from comments, I know, and I will finally answer tomorrow. It's late, I'm exhausted and I can't believe I'm still awake. :D Talk to you all soon. Hope you enjoyed this chapter. <3


	5. V. Spilled Ink

**V. Spilled Ink**

She isn’t comin’.  She stood me up.  Why am I such a gullible fool?

_The hands of Dennis’ watch told the ugly truth he wanted to deny:  it was 6:30pm, a half hour after the appointed meeting time at Lovash, selected because the girl craved spicy food.  Spicy food wasn’t to his liking and he always chose to eat plainly, but females tended to surrender to their yearnings for certain foods so he didn’t protest.  The saving grace was that since the restaurant served Indian fare, the menu offered a bevy of vegetarian dishes he preferred._

_His anxious distress affected the room as he tried to ignore the pity glances from other diners obsessed with obtrusive checking if the lone man’s date finally arrived.  The menu was his only source of entertainment; he’d read it through three times and downed two full glasses of water during the wait.  Hope crumbled with each passing minute and he was about to leave when he spied her entering the door._

_She immediately captivated him when he saw why she’d been late.  No longer in her zoo uniform, she had donned a delicate light pink velvet dress and resembled a delicate fairy fluttering over the threshold.  The sight of her went straight to his loins and he groaned as, spotting him, she smiled and waved, following the waitress to the table._

_“Sorry I’m late,” she repented, her voice breathless and low, which did not improve the problem Dennis was dealing with under the table.  “I would’ve called, but we never exchanged numbers.”_

_“You’re in a dress,” he said simply, feeling stupid for the obvious comment and realizing later that he’d missed her cue for his number._

_“That’s why I’m late.  Wasn’t I worth it?”  Sassy quickly transformed back to sweet when she saw him frown.  “Do you like it?  I wanted to look nice for you.  Like a girl, for a change.”_

_“You always look like a girl.”_

_“You’ve never seen me in a dress before.  I like pink.  It’s my favorite color.  Not bright pink because it looks whorish but this shade of pink.  Pale pink.”_

_“You look very pretty.”_

_She beamed at the compliment._

_“Do I?  I hoped you’d like it.”_

_Happiness warmed the hearth of Dennis’ heart in knowing that someone, particularly the girl he was interested in, wanted to impress him.  It was a weird switch from him being the one trying to make the impression._

_The waitress came to fill his glass of water and took Bryn’s order for soda._

_“I bought this dress after work today.  My bus was running late because of rush hour.  I hope you weren’t waiting long.  Oh my god, I’m sorry for rambling.  I talk too much when I’m nervous.”_

_“I like listenin’ to you talk.  Ah-I’m not much of a talker.”_

_Foible justified, she smiled and rattled on.  Her vitality captivated him and he savored her every move.  Her eyes sparkled, face glowed, lips pouted.  The way she leaned into the table to punctuate her points or when she said something she believed to be intimate.  He admired her for the youthful liveliness he never had._

_“I spoke to Maya today,” she announced._

_“Does she know who you’re with right now?”_

_Roses bloomed across her high cheekbones.  “No.  I wanted this to be between us until we figure out what’s what.  I still feel guilty for pressuring you.  This whole mess was my fault because I couldn’t wait.  Maya always complains I’m impatient.  Now she’s afraid of you and we all could’ve been enjoying ourselves in bed right now.”_

_Dennis’ expression lightened with the fleeting image before souring again._

_“I’m sorry.  I said that way too loud.”_

_“You’re very sure of yourself.”_

_Her charming smile melted a layer of ice that encased his heart._

_“I want to have sex with you.  Why is that hard to believe?”_

_“It’s very forward of you.”_

_“I like honesty.”_

_“Speakin’ of honesty.  You need to tell Maya you’re here with me.  I don’t want any trouble.”_

_“We’re not doing anything wrong, Dennis.”_

_“Then you need to tell your girlfriend if you believe that.  People will imply that we’re doin’ somethin’.”_

_“Let them.  They will anyway.  And I’ll handle Maya, don’t worry.  People don’t think men and women can be… what’s the word?  When two people of opposite sex are friends only?”_

_“Platonic.”_

_“Yeah, that.  Besides, I’m of consenting age and you look younger than you are.”_

_“I do?”_

_“Yeah, you do.  You look good, Dennis.”_

_At that point the waitress came to take their orders and Dennis sighed relief._

_“Maya thinks so too,” continued the girl.  “She’s soooo in denial of it now because of what happened but she_ really _wants you.  The whole thing was her idea because she thinks you’re hot.”_

 _“What do_ you _think?”_

_“I think so too.  But I’m more into the person you are instead of what you look like.”_

_“Y-you like me as… as a p-person?”_

_“You stutter when you’re nervous.  It’s sweet.”_

_“Have you been here before?”  he asked, trying to take the attention off of himself._

_“Yeah, Maya and I come here once in a while.”  News of that alarmed Dennis and, seeing his panic, she allayed, “Not often enough to be remembered and we’re kinda subtle about our relationship so I don’t think they would suspect anything.”_

_“You weren’t subtle at the zoo.”_

_“That was Maya’s plan to draw your attention.  She says no man can resist lesbians.  So far she’s been right.”_

_“How many men have you been with?”_

_“Guys?  Or men?”_

_“Males my age.”_

_Her laugh was light and lovely like chimes in the wind._

_“Only you.  Well, not you.  Not yet.”_

_“I’m locked in your sights.”_

_“I see how you look at me.  Maya does too and guessed we could use it to our advantage.  We’ve only involved three other guys, all our age.  Young guys are such assholes though.  We want to try a man who’s mature.”_

_“I could get into_ so _much trouble.”_

_“Only if anybody finds out.  Believe me, we don’t want people to know either.  That’s why we want to try an older man.  Young guys brag to everybody in earshot.  Who we invite into our bed is nobody’s business but our own.”_

_“You have a mature outlook on it.”_

_“I have to playing this game.”_

_“What if Maya doesn’t agree?”_

_Bryn shrugged.  “We’ll work things out.”_

_“I need to be good, Bryn.  We shouldn’t be doin’ this.”_

_“If we shouldn’t do it, why are you here, Dennis?  We’re fine.  It’s just dinner.”_

_“It isn’t platonic if you wanna have sex with me.”_

_Once again Fate bestowed a second merciful act when the waitress returned with their food and Bryn changed her subject to daily things at the zoo and school, light talk about her family and a vacation to California.  He kept quiet and listened, finishing his vegetarian dish before she ate half of her chicken._

_“I know you don’t like to_ be _touched,” Bryn made a sudden return to the forbidden conversation.  “But do you like_ to _touch?”_

_“That depends.”_

_“On what?”_

_The answer created discomfort for him and he flagged the waitress over to request a box for his leftovers as a deterrent from answering.  When she returned with the containers, she asked if they wanted dessert, to which Bryn expressly ordered pistachio ice cream._

I already have dessert, _thought Dennis, leering with unbridled lust at the girl’s breasts._

_Instead he declined and asked for the check._

_“I’m gonna use the bathroom,” she announced, then slid out of her chair and sashayed to the lady’s room at back of the dining area._

_An indiscreet, unabashed leer at her backside and the sway of her hips earned Dennis a frown from an older Indian matriarch sitting with her family at the next table.  His base appreciation of the girl transformed into an acerbic warning to the woman to mind her own business before he surveyed the other diners in the room.  Nobody else was paying attention to the dubious relationship between the grown man and the teenage girl.  A dish of ice cream was brought to the table seconds before the girl returned._

_“Yum!” she exclaimed.  “It’s great to come back and your food is waiting.”_

_Taking her seat, she dove right into the creamy treat, her eye lids fluttering as she moaned with pleasure.  Dennis was engrossed in observing her epicurean delight when, a soft swoosh of fabric brushed across his fingers underneath the table.  Until Bryn whispered his name and gestured to the table he didn’t realize she was passing something to him beneath.  Taking it from her, he prudently checked her gift and inhaled sharply through his nose._

_It was her panties.  She wouldn’t reciprocate his shocked look but instead scooped more ice cream into her mouth as if nothing transpired.  Moaning, she made a show of licking a dollop of ice cream from the spoon, her tongue slow and deliberate.  His mouth watered with rumination of licking the bare sweet treat waiting for him and pondered what it tasted like.  Like a sweet, ripe peach dripping with nectar, maybe.  In this momentary lapse of reason, he groaned as his cock stiffened in his pants and his weight shifted to stuff the panties into his pocket._

_The girl’s erotic display of licking the ice cream was drawing to an end and the sexual spell he’d been under broke with the clink of the spoon hitting the bottom of the porcelain bowl.  He paid the bill despite her protest and reminder that she meant to pay, and tried to think of anything else other than what was between her legs.  Her imagined taste was on his lips when he ran his tongue across them and when she saw his gesture, she smiled faintly._

_“You look like you need some fresh air,” she quipped._

_“I can’t move at the moment.”_

_“I bet,” she replied with a smirk._

_They waited out the minutes until Dennis regained self-control before he urged her up and hurried out to the street.  They walked fast in silence, she matching his stride with the long legs of a cheerleader, for a few blocks to the bus stop.  Bryn stood apart from him and, as her eyes pored up the street for the bus, his eyes crawled up her bare legs and fixated on her groin, wanting desperately to get a glimpse of her sweet cunt.  He licked his lips and exhaled sharply, drawing her amused attention._

_“Thanks for paying,” she said.  “You didn’t have to.  I invited, I was going to pay.”_

_“Don’t worry about it.”_

_“What are your plans for the rest of the night?”_

_The harshness of his blue eyes upon her did not deter another mischievous smirk from her._

_“My bus is a little farther up,” she admitted.  “I’ll see you tomorrow.  Enjoy the panties.”_

_Dennis watched the alluring sway of the girl’s hips until she was lost in the crowd.  Ten minutes later, his bus came and he took a seat in the back half, away from most of the other passengers.  Philadelphia rushed passed his eyes on the opposite side of the window but all he saw were those pink lacy panties concealed in his pocket.  Home couldn’t come fast enough._

_Sweat broke out on his brow as he struggled to maintain his composure.  When at last the bus neared his stop, he acted as normal as a man touching everything with his hand wrapped in a yellow shop rag could.  He jogged across the busy street when the traffic stopped at the light and to the gates that led to his subterranean home.  Dinner was tossed into the refrigerator more carelessly than he intended but sex was another, and currently more urgent, basic need._

_First stop was the bathroom where he took two yellow washcloths and soaked one under the running faucet.  Both were taken into the bedroom and placed on the table beside the bed before he stretched out over it.  Enough time already lapsed so rather than removing everything, he unbuckled his belt and drew his pants down over his hips, the feminine treasure grasped in his hand._

_Pressing the panties against his nose, he deeply inhaled the female aroma left on them, his cock responding straight away.  Oh god he was going to die!  It had been_ soooo _long!  More fragrant than a spring bouquet, the intoxication from it caused the room to whirl around him.  His fist worked a maddening rhythm over his erection until, panting and perspiring, he was spent, his milky seed oozing down his shaft like lava from a volcano._

_He waited for his breathing to steady before wiping his semen off his hand and groin with the wet wash cloth then rid himself of moisture with the dry one.  He sat on the edge of the bed and undressed before going to shower, tossing the washcloths into the hamper on the way._

_The water was boiling hot to purify him of his filth and after he scrubbed every inch, he stood under the stream for as long as he bear.  It took only a few minutes for his skin to go red and blotchy and only then did he turn the water off and patted himself dry with a towel.  Lotion was slathered over his scorched skin to soothe it before he donned his pajamas.  Pajamas were always a great comfort for him.  They provided warmth, concealed his flesh and encumbered the progress of the rapist who sought to touch it at night.  Boxers and an undershirt weren’t enough.  His night clothes were always a long sleeved pajama set that fended off the terrors of his past as he burrowed underneath the heap of soft yellow blankets and supportive pillows._

_This wealth of comfort was his fortress and he looked forward to it at the end of every day.  Tonight he was lucky.  The first position he settled in was comfortable.  With a groaning sigh, he thought of Bryn’s proposition.  A decade made him so sex starved he was surprised that he was able to keep his behavior in check.  He wasn’t a bad person.  He just had bad habits.  Most of the time he was able control the hunger.  When he couldn’t, he vented it safely._

_Here was this girl, perfect in every way to satisfy those wants, offering herself to him like a virgin sacrifice to an ancient phallic god.  What damage could giving in cause?  It was consensual and he was meticulous and so very careful.  Yet being with her was still discouraged by the same society that said she could give legal consent.  He could lose his precious job.  Was this girl’s pussy worth that risk?  It had been ten years and he needed intercourse to cool the desirous inferno simmering inside him._

_Sleep was needed for work in the morning and he fought to clear his mind.  After an hour, exhaustion fell on him like another blanket and he was simply too tired to think.  Just before the moment sleep took him, he made his decision._

****

For the second time that day, Casey’s eyes left her work on the drawing she was adding detail to when Dennis whimpered in his sleep.  Sadness mounted in her as she watched him writhe from god knew what unseen torment that was playing out in his head.  Because his internal struggle was so intense, she wondered if he would even wake up as Dennis or if one of the others would force The Light from him.  If she reached a gentle hand out to soothe him, chances were he’d wake up in terror or violence, neither of which she wanted to rouse in him.  Let him battle it out on his own; it was best that way.

His restless sleep worried her, nevertheless.  Back when he fell asleep in the chair, it was the same story.  She was sitting in the corner, watching shadows lean in from the broken window and reflecting on the events she’d left behind in her own life.  The note would be in Aunt Caroline’s hands by now and she hoped John was getting his ass handed to him or, better still, thrown in prison.  Her fondest desire was that Caroline used the box cutter to castrate her molester and this was what she was dreaming of when Dennis’ sobs jarred her from the daydream.

Attention drawn to his reposed body, she waited.  Seconds later, he mumbled the words “No, please, no” and tried to squirm from the clutches of an attacker.  His history was too fascinating to not observe his actions with wonder and she trained on him with interest, eager for more clues as to what demons he battled.  He settled but thrashed again, mumbling an incoherent entreaty as his invisible opponent almost ousted him from the chair.  Whether he won or not was unknown as all movement suddenly stopped save for the rise and fall of his chest.  When he woke, he had no memory or made no mention of whatever bothered him so she forgot about it.

As the sun bled and died in the sky, she left him to his nightmares in favor of rifling through the supply closet for a few jarred candles that she lit.  On her way back to the chair, her foot entangled in the bags he’d brought in earlier and she nearly toppled onto the sleeping man in the makeshift bed.  She cursed and he stirred at the disturbance.  In his fit, the blanket was yanked off his body so she leaned down and covered him again.  Her eyes scanned the barebones room.  Extra blankets seen piled in the adjacent corner made her wonder if they were unwanted because they weren’t yellow.  They were thick and warm and were very needed despite their incorrect color so she hauled them to the bed and spread them out over the top.  He would be toasty now.

Wanting to boost the goodwill between them by doing things that would benefit them both, she unpacked and arranged the new supplies into the closet.  The giant Hershey bar was a find that she stared at with longing for a lengthy time, intrigued by its inclusion.  Why would Dennis buy a ginormous chocolate bar?  Hard muscle made his body fit and lithe; there wasn’t an ounce of fat on him.  It didn’t make sense that he had a secret predilection for chocolate, at least not _this_ much chocolate.  Maybe he planned to use it as bait for something.  _Maybe a cheerleader or a Girl Scout_ , she mused, then was bothered by her biting, dark edged humor.

That black humor seeped into her artwork when she finally finished unpacking and returned to the chair.  The latest drawing was the start of a comic strip depicting herself in a leather bra and pants set with a shotgun in one hand and the leash of The Beast, shirtless, barefoot and crouching on all fours before her, in the other.  On paper she had dominion over him and he was a pliable kitten in her arms but a raging tiger who needed that leash lest he rip the world asunder.  In the next panel they watched an Impure cheerleader, Casey wearing scorn on her face and slavering lust plain on his.  In the third, they cornered the cheerleader, The Beast pinning her against the wall and licking her terrified face, his hand groping her bare breast, the shirt ripped from her as Casey aimed the rifle at the victim’s chest in case she didn’t comply.

It may have been in bad taste to normal eyes but Casey still harbored a great deal of resentment toward herself for what John did to her.  Instead of cutting herself, she was now projecting that self-loathing on others by forcing them into the victimization she was trapped in over her short lifetime.  It was only in fiction, at least for now.  She was here for The Beast and she knew his intentions.  There wouldn’t be rape, but she could avenge what life did to her by tracking down The Impure with Dennis.

Was she sick, then?  Maybe to that normal eye but she realized in that pivotal moment she shared with him at the zoo that she and The Beast were two of a kind and far from normal.  Their trials fortified them in ways nobody who wasn’t Broken was capable of understanding.  True, the drawing depicted the sexual violence she spent most of her life pining to escape but venting by drawing a rape scene was better than acting as a part of one.  She wished she was different but she wished a lot of things and The Beast wanted her because of what she endured.

Had she drawn Dennis in the scenario, the defilement would’ve been plausible and rueful in its truth.  She knew she’d gone from one sexual predator to another by being there with him.  Yet at least she could give Dennis credit; he applied restraint and made an effort to be respectful.  Nor would The Beast have a sexual interest in his victims.  Unlike the unstable Dennis, he didn’t want sex from the Impure Young, he wanted to even the score between The Broken and The Impure.  He didn’t molest Claire or Marcia before he mutilated them.  He’d just devoured them like a starving lion eating a gazelle in a yellow painted savannah.  She shuddered at the power it took to do something like that with his bare hands and teeth.

Again, she peeped over the incriminating sketch pad to her sleeping companion.  Innocence was a trait she didn’t expect him to own, but Dennis exhibited a startling and substantial amount with his confession that he’d misunderstood The Beast’s intention to devour The Impure captives.  At first she was tempted to swat him for stupidity but his expression was too sincere and she realized he was not joking.  If he was that susceptible, then either Patricia or The Beast were manipulating him to do things he disagreed with.  For all of his renowned brawn and discipline, Dennis was painfully submissive.  He was under someone’s spell and Patricia had to be the instigator.  Some of the first words that Patricia uttered to the girls unveiled her as the puppeteer of the group.

 _Don’t worry.  I’ll talk to him.  He_ listens _to me._

As if on cue, Dennis’ invisible enemy’s imminent return arrived for a third round and she listened to him beg to be left untouched and watched as he struggled.  For a brief time he quieted but then sobbed and turned his back to her, exposing his backside to the coming cold for the second time.  Clenching the pen between her teeth, she reached over to cover him again.  Good thing she didn’t take any of his clothing off or he’d be freezing for tossing the blankets away.  She watched him for a while, theorizing about what was happening in his head.  Nightmares dredging up the bones of memories he’d rather have left to extinction was her guess.

Sympathy for him swelled her heart for the first time when she considered the enormous burden that lay on his shoulders.  It was hard enough to be Kevin but what had Dennis sobbing in his sleep were the things that once broke Kevin and left him shattered into twenty-four pieces.  Dennis was so strong-willed that anything that provoked restless sleep in him had to be monumentally disturbing.  In knowing that, her curiosity intensified and most certainly his for her must be equally great with her christening as special and different by the personality he idolized.  A great deal of his history was expected to be told as a pastime with an indeterminable amount of time together ahead of them. 

In his sleep, turbulent as it was, with his customary dour expression relaxed and glasses off, she discovered how handsome he was.  Out of a dress and heels, with a child’s disposition absent, free of the intimidation of an angry countenance, and clean of a monstrosity’s evidence of murder, he was very attractive and she hated herself for finding him so.  Nevertheless, she could not look away from his reposed form, remembering in vivid detail the hard, trim muscle hidden underneath the clothing and shuddered.  Her only experience with the male body was with John, who was overweight and out of shape.  Despite being an exemplary specimen of masculinity, Dennis was always as buttoned up as a priest, an irony that did not pass Casey when he complained about the many layers she wore while wearing just as many himself.

At that precise moment, the horrors of his restive sleep were laid bare and she wanted to kick herself because she recognized his behavior as her own.  The truth put many pieces of the puzzle together.  A learned sexual deviancy.  A mind trapped in an abnormal preference that likely harkened back to the age when the abuse started.  Abstinence from physical touch whenever possible, the anticipated stiffening of his body when it occurred.  The many layers of clothing buttoned up to hide his flesh from anyone it might tempt.  She suspected it in his earlier nap and the prospect softened her treatment of him.  Now in deeper thought on the subject, she was certain of it.  Dennis had been raped was her experienced educated guess.

Jade, one of the female alters, warned her in their brief encounter that Kevin couldn’t cope with reality and the scenario of a much stronger, more resilient Dennis stepping in as Kevin’s whipping boy presented itself to her.  That was when she broke down and quietly cried for him.  Thankfully, she was never physically abused but the shared horrors that haunted him now left scars like ribbons across her heart and her midriff.  Setting her artwork aside, she watched him, thinking.  _This_ was the reason Fate joined them together.  They were two of a kind, more than she was with The Beast.

He mumbled something incoherently again, his face contorting as if in pain for a moment before relaxing.  Now she couldn’t ignore his plight.  She slipped from the chair and sat on the mattress but he immediately moved away, even while sleeping.

“Dennis,” she whispered and it sounded like a roar in the dead quiet of their isolation.  “The one who hurt you is _not here_.  _I_ am.  I’m your guardian angel.  You are _safe_.”

The calming affect of her voice coaxed him closer to her again, like a lost child seeking the comfort of his mother.  His hand, opened with fingers curled, moved near her in what appeared to be a subconscious invitation.  For a moment, she stared at it, gathering courage as her own palms began to sweat.  Would he even _want_ her to?  The impermissible contact could bring consequences neither of them wanted.  If he could resist molesting her, then she could repay him in kind, even if her molestation was of a gentler sort.  Consent was everything.

The face of his watch told it was after nine.  Aching eyes from drawing in dim light decided it wouldn’t hurt for her to turn in early as well.  She blew out the candles and slid beneath all but one of the blankets, respecting his space enough to keep the innermost one between them.  His hand reclined close to her, a forbidden pleasure waiting to be taken; she was Eve in this modern concrete Eden, fighting the urge to reach for Adam.

She wiggled over close enough to feel heat from his body without physical contact, and let herself relax.  There was no need to fear in their secret Eden.  She laid on her side, then strategically placed her hand near his so that every time she breathed, her rising chest moved it forward and the knuckle of her index finger touched his finger lightly, faintly like a butterfly’s delicate wings.  Whatever happened would happen on its own.

****

A twitch in Dennis’ hand that detected the dead weight and warm flesh of another was what opened his eyes.  Pitch darkness flooded the room, proving it was some ungodly nocturnal hour.  The girl was asleep beside him and their fingers were lightly intertwined.  How that came about he wasn’t sure but he immediately retracted.  A lifeline was in The Yellow Rag as it was extricated from the front pocket of his jeans and used to wipe both of his hands and then to be safe, the pillow his head rested on and the portion of the mattress between them in case she’d entered his personal space.  Finished, he clutched the Yellow Rag in his tight fist and watched her, upset revulsion marring his face.

What was he supposed to do?  An invitation to join him was not authorization to touch him.  She had to know that.  She was familiar with his habits and troubles, which made him angry that she would violate his trust.  He was good and saved her from unwanted attention.  Why couldn’t she be decent enough to return that favor, especially after he was good enough to offer half of his bed to her?  If he wanted to be a bastard, he could’ve told her to sleep on the dusty floor.  He rolled onto his back, stared at the ceiling and performed a breathing exercise to calm down.  Reason slowly seeped in with the calm.

Clearly she was deep asleep and probably had been for a long while.  The mattress was queen sized with enough room to share so there was no need for the close proximity they were in.  People moved in their sleep.  It must’ve been accidental.  She didn’t want to touch him any more than he wanted to be touched by her.  He promised to not violate her and she awarded him with trust to sleep beside him.  Their flesh still made contact despite the wall of a single blanket left between them and he didn’t know how to approach the issue.  What if he confronted her about it and she left them?  The Beast would never forgive him and he’d face exile back into The Darkness, this time forever.

Too many of his years were wasted in that consuming Darkness, engaged in long conversations with Patricia about how the others have never experienced suffering.  It was there where their hatred for The Impure was born and festered, decaying the best parts of them until they became obsessed with avenging the wrongs that were inflicted upon them.  The others heard their musing and scorned them, giving them the name The Horde because their ideas were monstrous.  But they didn’t know any better.  They didn’t know suffering like Dennis and Patricia did and their innocence was a bad taste on The Horde’s tongue.

During those long stagnant years, Dennis noticed that Kevin was in their company, curled into the fetal position and wrapped in a yellow blanket.  It was the blanket he first saw, its brightness a beacon stood out in The Darkness and a childhood memory of holding Kevin underneath a similar one made him pause.  The old instinct to guard his host sibling rekindled and once he gave in, taking Kevin into his arms even as adults.  He was on his way to joining Kevin in blissful slumber when Patricia discovered them and intervened.

“There are better methods to protect him, Dennis,” she admonished.  “Neither of you are children anymore.”

A sharp ache from his full bladder made him groan, jarring him back to the present moment.  He was reluctant to disturb the girl by getting up, nor did he want to leave the alluring comfort of their nest.  His fingers lightly flexed around the Yellow Rag, squeezing in a gesture meant for her fingers to thank her for the grain of faith given to him if he’d had the courage to still hold her hand.  He feared movement would disenchant the illusion and leave him bereft of the hope blooming in his heart that she liked and forgave him.  If he left her, he’d be unable to reclaim the moment that he wanted to bask in for as long as possible.  But his bladder was killing that hope.  He fought hard against it, holding his breath and wishing the physical need would adhere to the emotional need being fulfilled and go away but it became too unbearable and he _had_ to go.

The small portion of his broken heart that had healed from her nearness maimed again in their separation but he released her hand and made a hasty retreat from the bed.  Rushing outside, he walked as fast as a full bladder allowed out to the grassy area designated as a bathroom where he relieved himself with a moan of satisfaction.

Maybe if he returned before she awakened he could touch her in an inoffensive way.  Touch was tolerable to a degree if he was the one doing the actual touching.  The Beast owed him _something_ and a caress across the arm was such a small thing.  The nagging thought from back when he searched her body for the wound frustrated him again.  Would The Beast mind if he traced a few of the ugliest scars with the slightest trace of his fingertip?  If he could dare do that, should he push his luck a little farther and gently lave his tongue over them?

“Don’t even consider what just went through your head, Dennis,” Patricia warned with austerity that only a female could wield.  “That girl belongs to _him_.”

“It’s a fantasy, Patricia.  I can hope and fantasize as much as I want if I don’t act on it.”

“ _If_ you don’t act.  We all know.  No matter how powerful you are, young girls are _not_ your strong suit.”

“ _I’m_ in charge for a reason.  He came to _me_ for a reason.  Until he first emerged, _I_ was the only one he had contact with.  _Me_.  Nobody else.  Not even _you_.  Can you please show me the same confidence that he does?  Please?”

Patricia sighed, resigned.

“Watch yourself, Dennis.  We are all we have.  Don’t get entangled with that girl.  She is an outsider.”

“Don’t worry.  I have everything under control.”

“If he trusts you, then I trust you, Dennis.  Don’t let us down.”

“She’ll be an asset for us.  He knows she will.  Please be patient.  It’ll all work out.”

“Go back to bed.  You need sleep, she is right about that.  And _don’t touch her_.”

“It’s not my fault what happened when I was asleep.  Maybe she did it herself.”

“Dennis….”

“I won’t.  I promise.”

He didn’t want to admit to it, but Patricia told no lie.  Even a simple stroke across the teen’s forearm might inflame an uncontrollable lust and he needed to be good, regardless of how hot the fire grew.  It shouldn’t be consistently thrown in his face when he was trying very hard.  Annoyed by Patricia’s needless two-cents, he trudged back up to the bedroom, making a pit stop at the supply closet for a baby wipe to clean his hands before returning to bed.  The girl sensed his presence and stretched, one of her arms flinging carelessly into his designated side of the mattress, blocking him from the spot rightfully his.  Damn it.

With the Yellow Rag, he positioned her arm against her body, enabling him to slip beneath the trio of blankets, back into the space that molded to his somnolent body.  He sighed and, feeling his warmth after its absence, the girl rolled over, placing her arm around him and her head against his shoulder.  Upon contact, his body seized into a frightened rigidity and, with great dread, that certain part of his anatomy hardened like steel.  Goddamn it.  _Now_ what was he supposed to do?

His mind was still groggy with the need for sleep but his body was wide awake in arousal.  With a hand on his head, he sighed with despair.  For several minutes he willed the cursed erection to soften but as renowned as his disciplined mind was for performing miracles this was one he failed at.  Then the vulgar images came, starting with one of her luscious nipple demanding his attention.  He groaned, regretting that he didn’t take the chance when he had it.  He looked back over his shoulder at her thin body and wondered if he could reclaim that moment and suckle on the tender rosebud of flesh.  One thought led to another and he closed his eyes, deep in the daydream of thrusting into her tight, slick hole as his mouth worked on her nipple.

Breaking the dangerous fantasy, he wiggled away, ending the human contact he craved by a few tormenting inches, relieved that she didn’t instinctively follow.  Women liked to be close to men while sleeping; it made them feel safe.  It was nice that he was needed in that basic, primordial way but right now it was pure torment for him.

 _You do_ not _have her permission, Dennis!  Back off!_

Late night memories of waking to undesired, invasive touches and finding his private anatomy engulfed by orifices it had no right to be in made him quake as if touched by the cold hand of a ghoul.  Those violations, though years away, still felt new on his skin.  He would _not_ do that to her.  If anything happened, she would be awake and willing.

Instead of taking her hand, he groped himself between the legs, trying to tame his cock into submission.  He switched his thinking to anything that might help:  garbage, a filthy bathroom, the public bus, someone sneezing into their hand…. The fading but pretty floral scent of girl’s still clean hair combined with other smells that were definitively woman superseded those gross concepts and he groaned as his manhood throbbed harder.  Lust prevailed in the secret cover of darkness, blankets and eventual shame.  Careful not to make too much noise or motion, he unzipped his jeans and slid them down over his hips far enough to release his weeping erection from its cloth imprisonment.  With slow, measured strokes and attentive eyes trained on the girl lest his movements disturbed her, he brought himself to a sweet, strangled release, profane fantasies of fucking her friend with the dark hair playing out in his mind.  His companion went on sleeping, unaware of his muted cries or his make-believe defilement of her friend.

Reproach soon clouded the mood of satisfaction with his need to leave the bed for a stealthy clean up with more baby wipes, all the while he damned himself for being unable to maintain control.  That it was _such_ a bittersweet fall was his reasoning.  Lesson learned from a past mistake, he planned to burn the evidence of his inept lust and shame come morning and couldn’t wait to do so.  If there was any sign of sunrise peeking over the horizon, he would’ve done it immediately.  Already he pictured everything charring to cinder and floating into the ether, absolving him of a secret crime.  The girl would never know and their rocky truce would remain intact.

“You are a filthy beast, Dennis Crumb,” he repeated the daunting words of Kevin’s mother from long ago as he returned to bed where, released of his demonic urges, he was finally able to sleep again.  If there was a Hell, he was going to it.

****

Despite the practice game playing on the field directly in front of the end zone seat he occupied, watching the players was not Joseph Dunn’s interest.  That honor was saved for the comic book open in his lap.  In his adolescent years he never cared about comics or super heroes until his father became one.  Then he couldn’t get enough, eating the stories up with a rabid hunger, searching for clues and reasons why the man he had known all his life suddenly became extraordinary.  Or, more aptly, extraordinary to the world.  His father had always been his idol. The rest of the world was only now clued in. 

So engrossed in the story was Joseph that the coach’s shrill whistle and the burst of cheering from the players didn’t faze him.  Nor did the heavy footsteps scuffling the concrete jar him from his reading.  A prolonged sense of someone being near like a silent sentinel was what finally captured his attention.  The company was unwanted until he learned it was his father returning from his coffee run.

“How are they doing?”  David asked, eyes surveying the field and hands grasping two paper cups.

“No clue,” Joseph confessed, moving his feet off the railing so David could join him.

He took the proffered coffee and, ignoring David’s paternal warning that it was hot, took a blistering sip that seared his mouth.  Not enough air was able to in to cool the boiling liquid so he gave up and painfully swallowed.

“I tried to tell you,” David remarked, amused.  “Why are you still reading that stuff?”

“Because my dad belongs _in_ that stuff.”  He gave his father a quick sideways look that brimmed with enough pride to shame a peacock.  But David was too modest to play the preening peacock and simply sipped his coffee with smug affection.  “Did you find out anything else about that guy Crumb?”

“Not anything new.”

Joseph lowered his voice even though nobody was around to eavesdrop.

“You _have_ to find this guy, dad.  You’re the only one who can.  How are the police going to bring him down?  You heard what that girl said about him.  He’s as strong as you are.”

“I’ll get him, Joseph.”

“Dad?  I was thinking.”

“We’ll both be in trouble for that,” teased David with a smile.

Joseph laughed back but it rapidly faded with the suggestion he was about to make.

“I know how you feel about him, but maybe—just _maybe_ it would be smart to consult Elijah Price about this.”

“Jo-sephhhhh, come on.  I want nothing to do with him.  He’s dangerous.”

“So is this Crumb character.”

“I don’t need Elijah Price’s interference.  What’s he going to do from the asylum?”

“What did he do from a wheelchair?  My point was that he knows things most people don’t.  His whole life was spent specializing in comic books.  He knew about you before you knew yourself.  He’s got insight on this stuff.  He knows what he’s talking about.”

“He knows what he’s talking about because he’s part of the problem.”

“Who else can we turn to?”

David looked at his son, a parental gleam of interest in his eye.

“We?  Joseph, you’re not helping me with this one.  This guy is too dangerous.  I don’t want you to get in the way and get hurt or worse.”

“With all of the equipment we’re setting up in the shop, I won’t need to leave my chair.  The leg work is all yours.  You can take him, I won’t have to get physically involved.”

“Thanks for your vote of confidence but I’m still not going to see Elijah Price.  We finally got him out of our lives, I’m not bringing him back in.”

Joseph sat his coffee down on the pavement at his feet and shut the comic.

“Elijah Price is locked away where he can’t hurt anybody,” argued Joseph.  “Kevin Crumb is out there and he’s killing people.  You can’t waste time.”

“I agree with that second part.  But Price is out of the question.”

He swallowed more coffee, savored it for a prolonged minute as he watched the team play and looked like he wanted to say more.  Joseph knew better than to interrupt a silence when it befell his dad.  He waited, stroking the pages of the comic one by one over the tip of his index finger.  They were light to him but were a heavy yoke across his father’s shoulders.  Like it or not, his dad was born into this unbelievable world of heroes and villains, destined to do though reluctant to participate in.  Destiny could not be ignored for long and with The Horde amok in the Philadelphian streets, too many depended on his dad.

“There _is_ something,” his father finally said, with a voice distant as if speaking from a memory.

“What is it?”  Now he was on the edge of his seat in anticipation.

“When I left to meet you yesterday there was a strange man in front of the house.  I’ve never seen him before.  When I asked he said he was new to the neighborhood.”

Joseph’s attention was undivided at this news.

“Maybe he was telling the truth, I don’t know,” elaborated his father.  “Could be nothing but he gave me the heebie jeebies.  There was something off about him.”

“Like what?  Did you use your magic touch?”

“He wouldn’t let me.  He had a shop rag wrapped around his hand.  He didn’t explain but implied that he’s a germaphobe.”

“That’s convenient.”

“Isn’t it?  I’m not sure if that’s why he wouldn’t shake my hand though.  It was like he _knew_ what it meant if he did.”

“Well, maybe he did.”

David waited patiently without saying anything, knowing Joseph would say what was on his mind.

“If he _is_ Crumb then isn’t he more animal than human?  Animals have keen survival instincts that are almost supernatural.  I bet he didn’t take your hand because he knew not to.”

“That’s why I need you to do some behind the scenes investigation like you wanted to do.  Look him up when we get back.  Get a picture of him.”

“Will do.  Did Noel give your last check to you?”

David held the paper up for Joseph to see.  “Ready to be cashed to pay off our stock.”

“Does my Googling Crumb mean you’re accepting your fate now?”

“This could be nothing, you know.  Just paranoia.  This is just a precaution.”

“Of course, dad.  I’ll see you back at the store.”

Then he took his coffee but left his father with the comic placed in his lap.

_****_

First to wake the next morning was Casey who found herself nestled closely against Dennis’ back, head fitted comfortably between his shoulder blades and hand placed on the apex of his hip.  His body heat had undoubtedly drawn her toward him in the cold room and it was a heat more glorious than any of the blankets could provide.  There was a healing element to human touch that cured the ache in her soul whenever she touched him.  His breathing was deep and even and had a soothing effect on her in the quietness, better than crickets at night.  No harm was being done if she stayed against him like this, relishing the warmth and hardness of his body for a while longer.  He’d just continue sleeping if she was motionless.  Burying her nose into his shirt, she inhaled deep.  He smelled of lemons and baby powder but underneath was a feral scent of masculinity that she loved most.

 _Soooo different from John,_ she thought as her mind went numb with pleasure.

Remembering John added to her guilt for doing this to Dennis when she knew he wouldn’t let her if he was awake.  This was a violation of his trust, doing to him what she didn’t want done to her.  But he was so warm and smelled so good!  Wetness formed in the place she wanted to ignore and she forced herself away from him, resisting the urge to caress his chest.

Her stomach rumbled with a demand that reminded her that food came before sex in the order of things and there was the promise of snaring rabbits.  She hadn’t brought anything to make snares and doubted Dennis had anything useful either.  They needed viable sustenance outside of granola and fruit if they were going to regain strength.  Rather than waking him with noise while foraging through their supplies for snare materials, she decided that she would explore the other townhouses for stuff.  Cabin fever, a stealthy wolf lurking at the edge of her sanity, was getting her antsy and open space was a welcome prospect.

Her descent of the stairs was with as much caution that old bare wood allowed until she stepped outside.  The sky was overcast and beyond the trapped coldness of their abandoned space, it was warm with humidity.  The threat of rain was imminent and if she didn’t want to get soaked she’d have to act swiftly.  With that in mind and an indefinable desire to please Dennis with food but not worry him if he awakened alone, she started the earnest scavenging quest.

Two hours of bustling activity and a thorough search of several townhouses yielded some old rope in a closet several rows away from where they were living.  By this time the temperature was sweltering and she was a clammy, dirty mess unfit for Dennis’ company.  But the rope would bring in a contribution from her and she wouldn’t just be using his stuff without giving back.

She returned to the grassy spot where she saw the rabbits playing and started her work of tying the nooses for the snares then strategically setting them where she hoped the animals ran.  The rope was old, dried and frayed and she worried that it would snap without catching anything.  If the rabbits were strong enough, they could easily free themselves.  Only the smaller, younger ones would probably fall prey.  Meat was meat but small rabbits meant slim pickings.  If she managed to get anything, then Dennis should be the one who ate.  He needed it more if his superhuman strength was to ever return at full capacity.

“I thought you left us,” she heard Dennis’ deep voice purr behind her.

She turned and found him several feet away, standing outside on the stoop of their hideaway with a bottle of water and his Yellow Rag in his hand.

“I was building snares for those rabbits.  I don’t think we’ll trap big ones but something is better than nothing.”

She walked towards him, accepting the bottle of water he handed to her, which she opened and guzzled half down straight away.

“Are you feeling better?” she questioned.

“ _Much_ better.  Stronger.”

“Good.”

With a huff to cool her sweaty brow, she perched on the stairs and, after spreading the Yellow Rag down on the cement, he sat with her.

“You’re filthy,” he observed, his face scrunched in displeasure at her state.  “Go upstairs and clean up.  Change into new clothes and wash with the wipes.”

“Let me take a few minutes first.  I worked hard to make those snares.”

“I need to keep busy.  I miss the zoo.  I miss the peace and sanctuary of a home that was mine, where there was no risk of anybody bothering me.  All that was around was just me and the animals, locked away and protected from the rest of the world.  And I loved the work so much. It wasn’t the higher callin’ that The Beast and Patricia want but it suited me.  I enjoyed it and I was happy.  I needed the routine stability and positive reinforcement my work provided.  I feel worthless, sleeping while you work to do what I promised to do.”

“But you have a new job.  You need a rest period to do it.  Then you will go out there and do what you have to do so that you can do what you were meant to do.”

“Not doin’ anything is killin’ me.  “Rest period is over.  I need to take action.  The Beast asked for a large order this time.”

“I can help.”

He kept silent.

“I’m a good hunter,” she pursued.

“Of _animals_ , _not_ the Impure.”  His gaze was piercing and now in such close daylight proximity of him, she noticed his eyes were the arresting blue of a Caribbean sea.  They startled her and she knew he mistook the surprise for fear.  “You leave the hunting to me.”

“Then I’ll get a job.”

He scoffed, shaking his head.

“You don’t need to do anything but stay here for him.  I’ll take care of ya.”

“Dennis, I’m like you.  I’ll die if I don’t have anything to do.  I want to contribute.”

“I’ll think of somethin’.  But you gotta stay hidden.  A job is askin’ for trouble, even if you get paid in cash.  The cops must be lookin’ all over for you by now.”

“And they _are_ looking all over for _you_.  It’s better they find me than they find you.  Don’t you think?”

He said nothing in reply but outstretched his hand when drops of scattered rain fell on him.

“Better get back inside,” he advised.  “We can’t afford to catch cold.”

As a gentleman would, he waited for her to go in first before standing and, snatching up his Yellow Rag, trailed behind.  The first thing he did was visit the closet and hand a pack of unopened baby wipes to her.  In the passing, his fingers brushed against hers and her breath caught in her throat as her heart raced.  He was _touching_ her!  He was touching her and he wasn’t refraining!  Their hands lingered with the barely-there contact for a second longer than necessary until he at last withdrew.

“Clean up, please,” he said softly.  “In the bathroom.  I’ll stay here to give you privacy.”

Two things happened when she accepted the package from him:  first, the room grew dark as the storm’s arrival was announced with a thunderous boom and a sudden downpour and last, she realized that he hadn’t wiped himself with the rag after touching her.  That held promise, she thought.

“Take a candle so you can see,” he instructed.  “If you need help, give a shout and I’ll do my best without…”

“I’ll be OK, thanks.”

She took one of the candles from the floor and, while walking to the bathroom, she saw from the corner of her eye when he wiped off the hand that touched her as if she were contaminated.  So much for progress.

_****_

It was mid-September but the house was overdue for a thorough spring cleaning.  After a period of sobbing and screaming while lying in her marriage bed, Caroline finally decided that John did not deserve that claim over her and went into the adjoining bathroom to rub cold water over her face.  The smeared make-up washed away along with the woman she once was until another woman, a newly minted Valkyrie prepping for war, peered back at her in the mirror.

In the first line of attack was the myriad wedding photos framed all around the house.  They were taken down, the photos removed and compiled in a worthless mess of forsaken vows and deceitful memories, all of the rust and none of the diamonds strewn across the floor.  The ones of John with Casey’s father were next and John was cut out of those when possible.  The entire house was ransacked for photos and when they were all purged they were taken outside to the barbeque on the deck, saturated in lighter fluid and set ablaze by a gleeful match.

They warped then curled with agony under the intensity of the flame’s kiss, turning to grey ash and black charcoal, the fire melting through several images of John’s cheerful face.  Satisfaction put a smile on her face as she grew increasingly ecstatic at the symbolic murder of her husband.  Her husband the child molester.  The rapist.  The baby fucker.  She watched the stack incinerate until it was nearly gone, squirting more lighter fluid on it to speed up their death.  She wanted to stay and watch her fantasy life return to the oblivion it formed in but there was so much more to do.

She pulled the lid of the barbeque over the fire to let John’s memory choke on the smoke that had once filled her eyes and went back into the house.  The photos that included Casey’s father were gathered and she thought with a vicious glee that she’d leave John intact in those for her niece to deface.  No doubt it would be a simple gesture that would offer great pleasure to the girl.

The next order of housecleaning was to pack the rest of John’s belongings.  Most of them were crammed in the bedroom closet and out of her sight with urgency after she booted his ass out of the house.  The rest of it, she planned to donate or burn; she didn’t care which as long as it was away from her.  If his possessions were donated then at least some good could be salvaged from the wreckage of her life.  He wouldn’t be back for them.

The whole morning and half the afternoon was spent burning John out of her life.  The hunting trophies and gear were clustered in the nether region of the garage.  His clothing was thrown into large black trash bags for a Salvation Army drop off.  Toiletries, including the aftershave she loved so much on him and bought as a gift on their anniversary, were dumped down the drain, empty bottle discarded in the trash bins outside.

That was when she noticed the car.  It tried very hard to be inconspicuous but there it was, as obvious as a mastodon in a Manhattan apartment.  The tint on the windows was too dark for her to see if there were occupants but she had an eerie feeling that there were and she was being watched.

“Mrs Cooke!”

The sudden address startled her.  Placing a hand over her thumping heart, she turned to see a petite young woman standing a few feet away.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” the woman apologized.  “I was coming to your front door but saw you come out…”

“It’s OK.  There’s just…”  Caroline sighed and her shoulders slumped.  “There’s a lot to be jumpy about these days.”

The woman nodded, her smile faint.

“Mrs Cooke, I’m Jess Turner.  You were expecting me.”

“Ah, yes.”  Caroline’s wary eyes strayed to the foreboding car that she gave a slight gesture to.  “Not yours, I’m assuming.”

Turner side-eyed the car then replied in the negative.

“I didn’t think so,” Caroline said.  “Come in before they get any ideas.”

The two women went into the house and Caroline locked the door behind them.

“My guess is it’s an undercover cop or a reporter,” Caroline explained.  “The detectives working on the case didn’t say anything about having a car posted outside.  But there’s something about them that isn’t right.  Which was why I called you.”

She motioned for Turner to sit then took residence in her favorite chair after an offer for a drink was declined.

“Why don’t you trust the detectives working on your case, Mrs. Cooke?”

“Don’t.  I want to distance myself as much as possible.  Caroline, please.”

“Caroline.  You said on the phone you didn’t trust those who were supposed to help you and that you would go into detail in person.  Is it safe for me to assume you meant the detectives working on your case?”

Caroline sighed long and hard before replying.

“There’s just something _wrong_.  It’s just a feeling I get.  The hairs on my arms stand up.  I know that sounds paranoid but….”  She stopped and the corners of her pretty mouth twisted into a frown.  “I just don’t trust them.”

“Listening to your gut instinct isn’t paranoid.  If more people listened, we’d have less tragedy.”

Caroline gave a slight nod of agreement.

“I overheard a conversation one of them had with who I expected to be his superior officer,” she imparted.  “I was in the garage getting his partner a bottle of water.  He went outside to take a phone call but I could hear him from the other side of the garage door.”

“You don’t think it was to his superior officer?”

Biting her lip, Caroline shook her head.  “I don’t think he would’ve used the term doctor if it was.”

“Doctor?”

“Yeah.  I wouldn’t have given it much thought except he was talking about using Casey, she’s my missing niece, as bait to lure Kevin Crumb.  Anybody involved in law enforcement shouldn’t expect to use a teenage girl to lure a serial killer.”

“Do you think either they or Crumb have something to do with Casey’s second disappearance?”

“I don’t know.  I think it’s too much of a coincidence that she chose now, after the kidnapping ordeal, to finally tell what John was doing to her.  I think that her experience with Crumb empowered her.  Did she run away to find him?  Maybe, if he _did_ give her strength to nail that son of a bitch.”

“Frankly, it sounds like Stockholm syndrome.”

“She said that Crumb told her ‘The Broken are the more evolved.’  I asked her what he meant but she derailed the question by insisting that he wasn’t allowed to touch her because the other personalities wouldn’t let him.  He spared her for a reason but she wasn’t saying what it was.  Then I found a little case on her bed filled with sharp instruments.  Evidently she used them to cut herself.  That was happening long before she was abducted.  She also said that Crumb kept coercing the girls into removing articles of their clothing.  He must’ve forced her to remove her clothes and saw her cuts, then pieced things together.”

A cold shudder routed through her body with the notion that a serial killer provided her niece with the empowerment she could not.  Filled with shame and remorse, she stopped tears from spilling when they welled at the bottom of her eyes.  With determined resolve, she snapped out of her self-pity for it would do nothing to get Casey back.

“Did you remember something?”  Tucker asked.

“Reporters are starting to get wise that Casey’s missing again and that John’s not around anymore.  I think that black car out there might be one of them, skulking for information.  I’m sure they’ll know everything sooner or later but later is the better option.  The fewer who know about my family’s dirty secret, the better.  Casey’s been through enough and still has hell to get through.”

The corner of her eye caught movement outside the window and she gave full attention to the black car as it rolled away.

_****_

_Dennis stood at the windows of Kevin’s eyes, watching the girl through the crack left in the bathroom door as she stripped to her bra and panties. He tried to convince himself that he only wanted to see the scars but his eyes told the true story as they greedily took in every inch of her body.  With the milky skin, narrower hips, smaller breasts, and willowy figure she looked nothing like the supple, exotic Impure girl he wanted.  But she was beautiful because of those precious scars._

_He was still trying to come to terms with her being with him when a big red rubber ball was thrown from across the room and crashed hard into his legs.  The impact stung and nearly buckled his knees but he managed to keep his stance.  Turning, he was met with a tousle-haired boy who charged across the room after it, shouting, “I said_ quit it _, bitch!”_

_“Watch your language,” warned Dennis, stooping to retrieve the toy._

_“That bitch Jade threw my ball over here!  She told me to stand with the psycho where I belong.  I_ hate _her!”  A venomous glare as hard as the force ball was thrown in was shot over his shoulder at the young woman in reference as he bellowed louder at her until he was breathless and red faced:  “You better leave me alone or Mr Dennis will_ slap _you!”_

 _At his involuntary involvement, Dennis flinched but the young female personality countered, “Bring it on, I’ll kick his ass too!”  Then directed at Dennis with snarling conviction, “Next time I’ll aim for your_ head _,_ pervert! _”_

_The boy opened his mouth to scream something else but Dennis stopped him.  “Hedwig!  Ignore her!  She isn’t worth it!”_

_“She’s just mad because she’s a_ nobody _!” Hedwig continued anyway with the loud, embittered wrath of a child scorned.  “She’s not one of us because she makes us weak!”_

_That was no lie.  In his initial meeting at the train yard with The Beast, Dennis was instructed to handpick from the other alters those worthy to join him in bringing them at full potential and announcing their miraculous transformation to the world.  On a much higher evolutionary step than the rest, The Beast wanted only the best of them recruited, if not for physical prowess then for their aptitudes in other areas that may prove valuable in executing his grand scheme.  Jade fell short in every way except spunkiness._

_Being awarded such important work provided the discarded protector with a revived purpose and sense of worth that pumped needed lifeblood back into his atrophied heart.  It was a momentous occasion for Dennis who was honored to have the assignment.  Born out of Kevin’s desperation for a protective older brother like the ones other children had, Dennis was the first alter and different from the others.  Unlike any of them, he started out as a child, a sibling of sorts three years older than Kevin, growing and aging with him while the others were ageless and perpetually suspended in the stage of growth they came into existence in.  He supposed that was probably what made him exceptional among them._

_Acceptance was all Dennis ever wanted.  There was a poetic justice to The Beast’s vision:  they who were broken by life but strengthened rather than weakened by it, rising up to spit in the face of a world that had thrown them away.  Patricia, the second oldest in existence of the twenty-four, was the smart one with the master plan, pairing up with Dennis to determine who was valuable to The Beast.  Dennis was the muscle behind every physical action, doing what needed to be done.  And Hedwig, of all people, became the one with the covetous gift to control The Light.  Dennis mused that it must’ve been because, as much of a little jerk Hedwig could be, he was still a child and innocent in many ways.  That eternal innocence was rewarded with the gift, Dennis believed.  His theory was as good as any and Hedwig morphed into The Horde’s MVP._

_Patricia’s unshakable, unyielding faith was her best asset.  Dennis admired her strength of character.  She knew who she was without compromise.  Her spirituality fortified her and she was the first and only one with whom Dennis shared information regarding his secret meeting with The Beast.  Finally, she had something to truly believe in and the way conviction glazed her eyes was like a martyr in religious ecstasy and it frightened Dennis.  She asked many questions, foremost why she wasn’t who The Beast came to first.  Shrugging, Dennis gave her the only answer he could think of:  he was the first because he had been the first.  Whether or not Patricia was satisfied with that answer, she made no further complaint but instead seemed as rapturous as Dennis was just to simply be included and counted important._

_Hedwig’s theft of The Light was essential for them to realize The Beast’s dream and as annoying as he was, he needed inclusion into the new group.  Those who once scorned them now feared The Horde as they seized control of The Light and returned the courtesy of being repressed into The Dark where the others were exiled, ridiculed and helpless to do anything but watch their story unfold in a glorious new coming.  Maybe it was because he was always their main target of ridicule, Dennis was spiteful in his stringent belief that they didn’t matter, expendable because they weren’t strong enough.  Their beloved leader Barry was a prime example of their weakness after he was overthrown by a nine-year-old._

_Most of the others, however, understood that it was the dawning of a new age of humanity after they’d witnessed the grandeur of The Beast and edged toward switching sides.  The rule was evolve or perish.  Some wanted to join The Horde, Dennis observed with disdain and Patricia with joy.  Dennis sensed his valued position was threatened by the new interest, especially by the loudmouth annoyance named Luke, who he knew Patricia courted and held secret meetings with.  Patricia had a list of who she wanted to join The Horde and Luke, the next physically strongest, was at the top.  He didn’t deserve to join, Dennis argued, but Patricia held firm that Luke’s eyes were finally open and deserved a chance at redemption._

_Dennis held his tongue, knowing he was on borrowed time whether he excommunicated himself from The Beast’s murderous service or Luke ousted him from his spot.  Upon waking up with human flesh digesting inside him, Dennis realized he did not have the stomach for what The Beast had in store.  Try as he might, he was lousy at hiding that from Patricia, and thus Luke was weaponized against him.  Sympathy for The Impure was an incorrigible sin.  The Horde was strong and unrepentant, which was why Jade spat her venom about not making the cut.  Jade was the sickly one, her diabetes a flaw unwanted in a higher lifeform, and she was angry about her condition in general without exclusion from a greater destiny because of it.  Her desire to join was plain to him in the way she watched them then pretended not to when he looked back.  She lashed out at every chance she was given.  Dennis couldn’t help but empathize with her despite the vicious glare he returned in answer to her longing._

_“What’s a pervert?”_

_The boy’s sudden inquiry pulled him back into the moment._

_“Nothin’.  You’re too young to understand.  That word shouldn’t have been said around you.”_

_“What’s Miss Casey doin’ here?”_

_“Her name is Casey?”_

_“Yeah!  She never told you her name?”_

_“Her name never mattered before.”_

_“What’s she_ doing _here?  Is The Beast going to eat her?  Did you find her and bring her back?”_

_“She found us herself.”_

_“She came_ lookin’ _for us?  But why?”_

_Dennis’ tongue couldn’t form the answer so he said nothing._

_“She’s lookin’ for_ him _.”_

_“Does Miss Patricia know?”_

_“Yeah.”_

_“I like Miss Casey.  She’s my girlfriend.  She kissed me.”_

_Dennis winced when this tidbit was reported to him but before he could say anything about it, Hedwig got an idea and continued with his childish mouth diarrhea._

_“Maybe that’s why she went lookin’ for us!  We went dancin’ together so I know she likes me.  Maybe_ she _can play with me.  Y’know, since she’s here.  And because she’s my girlfriend an’ all.  Nobody ever wants to play with me.  Jade used to but she hates me now.  Jade is bein’ a major bitch.”_

_A tug on his heartstrings brought Dennis’ glance down to the child.  He understood betrayal and rejection very well; he certainly had enough eponymous dealings with it his whole life.  He didn’t believe that sassy Jade had a real interest in befriending Hedwig but at least she occupied the boy’s time.  The kid was a glutton for punishment, ignoring that her friendship was false, and with a young child’s trust, returned to his tormentor for more when Jade felt whimsical and feigned kindness.  Dennis didn’t like Hedwig either but assignment as protector was an inexorable burden he was obligated to act upon.  Unlike any of the others, he at least tolerated the kid._

_“I’ll play with ya.”_

_Hedwig beamed with hope, taking the ball from Dennis._

_“You will?”_

_“You don’t need Jade or any of the others.  They aren’t honest with you.  C’mon, let’s get away from them.  We’ll find more room and play catch.”_

_Dennis’ eyes met those of Patricia, ever critical and vigilant, as she observed the altercation from a spot in the semi-darkness, a secret knowing communicated between them._

_“Leave her to me, Dennis,” she murmured quietly, gesturing toward the assortment of identities sitting in their exclusive group.  “I know who to target.  You take care of our little Lightbearer.”_

_He walked passed her but said nothing in return.  What she was up to was her business… until she made it his.  With a supportive hand across the boy’s shoulder, Dennis led Hedwig to a corner, out of the sight of scornful eyes, where they tossed the ball back and forth between them._

_From the dark, he heard moments later muttered conversation in voices he recognized as those of Patricia and Jade.  At first he tried to ignore them but tidbits of their discussion drifted his way and he couldn’t help but to eventually listen._

_“You’re telling me that_ the pervert _is_ better than me _?”  Jade snarled.  “You have_ got _to be kidding.”_

_“Dennis is flawed but he has his merits.  I’ve told you.  If you want to join us, you need to prove to me that you are worth our while.  Your time is running out.  He will come again soon.  Prove your worth while there is still time left.  Your problem is irredeemable otherwise.”_

_“It’s called_ insulin _, Patricia!  This is sooooo_ stupid _!_ My _blood is_ your _blood!”_

_“And yet my blood is without defect.  We cannot have your deficiency tainting our perfection.  Unless…”_

_Without seeing her, Dennis felt Jade’s starburst of hope when Patricia’s voice trailed off into thought.  For a split second he pitied her because he knew what it was like to want to fit in with people who didn’t want you.  Then he recalled how ruthless she was in excluding him and the pity dropped like a hot coal.  Poetic justice was served as the outcasts suddenly became the desirable group to have membership in.  Dennis found grim satisfaction in that._

_“There are a few others who would like to join,” continued Patricia and if Dennis hadn’t been experienced enough to know better, he would’ve believed that the idea just came to her.  “But they are hesitant.  They still believe Barry holds some power over them.  Hedwig is not a bright child and they know that.  They don’t trust him as the Lightbearer but they want to be on the winning side.  Convince them that_ we are _the winning side and Barry is powerless.  Then we’ll be able to prove to The Beast that you are valuable to him despite your defect.”_

_Jade agreed, of course, and that ended the conversation.  Typical Patricia.  Always convincing others to do her dirty work.  Dennis’ own hands were red from the blood of her dirty work.  From the corner of his eye, he saw the teenage girl stroll back toward the others who peered at her with caution but Hedwig distracted him with a complaint for the ball to be thrown._

_“Sorry, kid,” he apologized before tossing it to him._

_Patricia caught his eye again when she left the umbrage, her face bearing another smug acknowledgement before she wandered elsewhere.  The ball sailed toward Dennis’ head for the second time but again he caught it before it struck._

_“Pay attention!”  was Hedwig’s impudent demand._

_Whatever was going on with Patricia, he counted his blessing that it didn’t currently involve him.  Omission from her plotting, however, did not exempt him from the hate that spread like poisonous radiation from the occupied side of the room._

****

Dennis’ internal drama was interrupted when the bathroom door swung open wide and Casey nearly collided into him.  Yelping with surprise, she jumped back with a hand over her heart as he ran his palm over his scalp and took a step back, scarcely hiding his shame.

“Oh my god, you scared me to death!”  she exclaimed.

“I’m s-sorry,” he stuttered.  “Ah-I wanted to see if you ha-had everything you needed.”

Her face reddened and crumpled with what he knew was disbelief.  She wanted to say something and he waited for scalding words of reprimand that never came.  Instead, she smiled half-heartedly, asked him to excuse her and managed to pass without bodily contact.  For a few seconds, he was a statue, not knowing which move would be appropriate:  pretend he needed the bathroom or trail after her.  The sound of her going through the supplies in the bedroom made him choose the latter.  He watched from his chair as she put the remainder of the baby wipes back but dug out more items that she brought over cradled in her arms.  She dumped it all onto the bed and sat down in front of him on the mattress.

“Let me check your wounds,” she said, reaching out for his arm.

Stock still until she touched him, he jolted from the trance he was locked in, blinked and withdrew from her grasp.

“Dennis.  Let me check your wounds.  They need to be cleaned.”

“I’ll clean them myself,” he protested.

“Fair enough.  At least let me look at them so I can check for signs of infection.  I won’t touch actual you, OK?  I’ll just look.”

There was a brief moment of tension before he nodded consent.

She reached again only this time he forced himself to stay motionless while she unwound the bandages.

“You’re going to scar,” she informed.  “You needed stitches.  Thank god it wasn’t your face.”

“Why is that?”

“It would be an easily identifiable mark.  We need to be as inconspicuous as possible.”  She examined closer, asking him to turn his arm over to make sure she wasn’t missing anything.  “There’s no infection so far but I’m going to flush it out with astringent and put clean bandages on every morning and night before going to bed.  Can you do the same for mine?”

“How will I know if there’s infection?”

“It’d be swollen, hard and red around the area of the wound.  Make sure there isn’t any pus or gross discharge.  The discharge should be clear or there shouldn’t be any at all.  If you have pain that won’t go away or develop a fever please let me know as soon as the symptoms start.  Then I’ll take measures to help you.  Promise me that if you get a fever you’ll tell me and do everything I say.”

“Yeah, I promise.”

He watched her cleanse the gashes with alcohol and wrap his arm securely in clean bandages, fighting the urge to not react to the sting of the astringent.  When she cleaned the wound on his neck, however, it smarted too much until he cried out and jumped backwards in the chair.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized.  “But it’s necessary.”

“Did your dad teach you how to treat wounds?”

“We used to go hunting all the time.  I learned when I was very young.  Better safe than sorry, he always said.  And it’s come in handy often, even when not out in the woods.”

“Because of all those scars you have?”

Horror painted her pretty face with an ugliness he didn’t like and she halted her care for his injuries to look at him.  He caught on to why and quickly tried to explain.

“Ah, I-I saw them when I was checkin’ for the wound The Beast inflicted.  I didn’t touch you in any way objectionable.”

Her gaze dropped to the flame on one of the candles, an elemental dancer that performed a wild routine on the wick of a pole to distract itself from the rawness of their unspoken histories.

“That’s why The Beast spared you.  He said you’re extraordinary like us.  What happened to you?  I’ll tell you somethin’ about me if you tell me.  You must have questions or somethin’ you’ve been wonderin’.  I know you don’t like me but you chose to be in this with me and we can make the most of it by learnin’ about each other.”  He paused, questioning if it was wise to say what he really wanted to say.  “I already admire you without knowin’ any details about why you were spared.  You must’ve been put through hell and you managed to stay who you are.  Kevin couldn’t stay whole.”

“Don’t admire me, I was doing what I had to.”

“So was I.  I always do what I have to do and that’s why everyone hates me.  Patricia said I’m the necessary evil.  It’s very easy to vilify the one doin’ the dirty work that needs to be done but that nobody else wants to do.”

She stared him deep in the eye and he tried to read her mind.  They sat in silence, eyes locked in an undeclared staring contest for several minutes, Dennis hoping she was forming compassion for a man who she held so much contempt and terror of.  When she didn’t respond, he reached down for her foot, intending to take off her shoe.

“It’s your turn,” he said.  “You have to take off your jeans for me to get to the wound.”

Coming to her senses, she nodded and stripped to her panties.  Dennis licked his lips and forced himself to not leer at her thin inner thighs or the prize that they helped the panties hide.

“I’m sorry this makes you uncomfortable.  But it needs to be done.  Give me your leg,” he demanded gently.  He ignored the way she cringed when she surrendered her foot and resisted the strong desire to caress her calf with his fingertips.  When his fingers made light contact with her skin, he held his breath as the muscles twitched beneath them.  “You OK with this?”

“I have no other choice.”

No other choice.  If there was another choice she wouldn’t let him touch her.  _You are a filthy little fucking beast, Kevin Wendell Crumb!_ Dennis gulped back the lump in his throat and, doing his best to not show how wounded he was, he distracted himself with the task of cleaning and inspecting her wound.  He rubbed in the ointment tenderly so the stitches wouldn’t pull, wishing he could slowly run his tongue up her inner thigh from knee to groin.  He broke out into a sweat from the thought but finished his check without incident.  Once he released her, she couldn’t cover herself up fast enough.  Dismayed, he took a deep breath and turned his head.

“Thank you,” she whispered.  “For helping.”

“You’re welcome.”  He considered apologizing for asking about the scars but didn’t know how.  The damage was already done.  Maybe it was best to say nothing at all.  “I’ve spent too much time alone,” he muttered under his breath.

“What?”

“Nothin’.  We need more light.  It’s gettin’ too dark in here.”

“I’ll get some candles.”

“No, sit.  You need to be off that leg.”

She scooted backward on the bed until the wall was against her back.

“Then could you bring my bag to me?”

The first thing he saw when he opened the supply closet was the Hershey bar and realized that she’d put his latest purchases away while he slept.  Though the surprise was ruined, he suspected it would still be appreciated.

“Are you hungry?”  he queried.  “While I’m in here, let me know.”

“I’m good.  I have stuff in my bag.”

The candy tucked under his arm, he grabbed the rest of what was needed and shut the door with his foot.  He lit a few more candles around their area, relaxing more as the extra light banished the frightful dark and eased his mind.  She accepted her backpack from him and was removing her sketch pad and pen when he dropped the chocolate bar down next to her.  For a few seconds she merely stared at it, seeming afraid to reach for his gift as if it was a grenade dropped beside her.

“I, ah… I thought you might like that,” he said, his voice unsteady.

Her next words were so unexpected they swelled his heart with hope again:  “Share it with me?”

It was a small gesture on her part, just as buying the chocolate was on his.  Whatever implication was behind each of those gestures meant the world to Dennis’ forlorn heart.  When he didn’t answer but instead gawked at her, she unwrapped the candy, broke off a substantial piece and offered it to him.  When he accepted, their fingers brushed against each other in the taking.  Not wanting to offend her, he waited until she was distracted with arranging her art supplies to wipe his hand on the trusty Yellow Rag waiting in the front pocket of his jeans to decontaminate him.

“What’re you drawin’?”  he asked, testing the waters.

“A comic.”

“Can I see?”

She clutched the sketch pad against her chest like it was a baby and passed him a defensive glare.

“Barry is like that with his sketches.  It must’ve killed him to see me finish a few of them and have creative ideas of my own with work he started.  He thinks I’m just a dumb grunt, barely a step above Neanderthal.”

“Does Barry know what you do when he’s not in The Light?”

“No, but he’s a nosey body who listens to conversations he’s not a part of.  Your little boyfriend Hedwig makes sure he stays away from The Light.  Since The Beast emerged, we’ve gotten stronger.  Barry is as incompetent as he once made me.”

He caught a glimpse of what looked like compassion in her eyes and it angered him.

“Don’t feel sorry for him.  He deserves it.  He’s not what you think he is.”

“And neither are you?”

If looks could kill, she would’ve been dead.

“No,” he replied with conviction.  “I’m not.”

She leaned her head back against the wall.  He watched intently, wanting to read her thoughts, yearning for another touch of her flesh that he pretended he didn’t want, wishing he could tolerate a reciprocal touch and that she would reach out and hold him.  He wished he could break down enough to allow her to hold him.  But he couldn’t and didn’t think he ever could.  He hated that he was such a freak and wanted to beg her forgiveness for it but abstained because it would give her control over him.  To his surprise, she extended another olive branch other than a hunk of chocolate.

“Were you serious about answering some of my questions if I told you about my scars?”

“Yeah, I was.”

“Good.  There’s a pretty bad storm outside and I have a lot of questions to ask.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise! With Easter's last breath tonight, I hop back into your lives with a gift basket for my loyal readers! :) Man, I did NOT intend for my hiatus to be two months long but the bright side is my chapters are very long when I do post. Keep reading; there is more to come (even if it takes another two months.... which I hope it doesn't.) Enjoy!


	6. VI. By Demons Be Driven

**VI. By Demons be Driven**

_“She’s gonna kill me, Dennis!!”  Kevin screamed.  “Save me!”_

_Peacefully asleep in the bed at the edge of The Light, Dennis was jolted awake by Kevin’s mad scramble to join him, yanking the blankets over their heads.  The distressed boy huddled against his guardian, his body quaking with a fear Dennis knew too well._

_Springing into action with no hesitation, Dennis flew from the bed and snatched The Light, meeting the ferocious woman head-on with a force akin to a Volkswagen Bug colliding with a tractor trailer.  Before he was able to gain his bearings, she clenched his arm tightly in her claws, screeching at him over an incident he had yet knew nothing about, striking him anywhere she could as he screamed back in fury and struggled to get away.  When he couldn’t free himself, he burst with answering hostility that matched hers._

_Adrenaline fused with survival instinct and with the cocktail an outbreak of war when he fought back, hitting her in the breast with his fist twice.  She slapped him hard on the head until there was a ringing in one of his ears and when her hand came close enough to his mouth, he bit ferociously into the soft flesh of the underside of her forearm.  Blood was drawn but he didn’t know if it was his after she backhanded him and cut his bottom lip or if his teeth broke her skin.  The strike jarred his jaws loose and she drew back, eyes bulging and face red, livid to the point where Dennis thought she’d physically transformed into the monster he knew her to be._

_The two were left at an impasse and the injured child firmly stood his ground, prepared to defend himself.  Splatters of blood rained on the floor and rivulets trickled down the wounded arm she clutched tightly.  So it was her blood after all, he realized with gratification.  Time stopped as child glared at mother in defiance, her blood dribbling from the corners of his mouth, mingling with his blood from the split lip in a marriage of animosity._

_“You little shit!”  she grumbled.  “How_ dare _you put your hands on me?!  I’ll teach you a damn good lesson, you worthless little crumb!”_

_Seizing his arm a second time, she manhandled the little boy as he squirmed and kicked at her.  Then he released a strident scream until his lungs burned when, with a loud pop, his shoulder separated from its socket.  Instead of releasing him as matriarchal instinct dictated she dragged him across Kevin’s room, out into the hallway and down to her bedroom.  There was no motherly affection or nurturing or even regret for what she was doing to her own son.  His meager attempt at self-defense made her become completely unhinged._

_Above his own cries, he couldn’t understand what she was yelling at him.  The shirt was ripped from his back, moving the injured shoulder at an impossible angle and he shrieked with all the capacity of his lungs.  She quieted those screams with an open hand to the side of his head, stunning him.  Soon the throbbing agony of the dislocated shoulder was combined with the smarting from the crack of her old wooden hair brush across his bare back.  Once, twice, three then four times._

_“Keep it up!” she growled, clamping his jaw tightly by the joints.  “I’ll kill you, you worthless little crumb!  I will_ kill _you!”_

 _The merciless pressure from her grasp stunned him to silence for a few short seconds.  Yet the pain was_ so great _and he whimpered, daring to look her dead in her poison green eye.  If he proved he was not afraid of her then maybe she would leave him alone.  Whether it worked or not he didn’t know because she released him when a male voice addressed her from the doorway._

_“Penelope!  What are you doing?!”_

_Dennis looked passed her as she whirled around to face the speaker.  It was Kevin’s father Clarence, tall, handsome and aghast at what he’d stumbled upon.  The child was afraid to move in that precarious moment, thinking that this was a trick and the newcomer would participate in the abuse.  To his surprise, he was scooped into defending arms with words of comfort cooed in his ear and held like a precious thing until Dennis whined and pushed away._

_“What’s wrong, kiddo?”  He checked over his son because Dennis was too upset to answer and noticed the arm that was at an odd angle.  “You dislocated his shoulder!  What the hell is wrong with you?!  This is_ our son _!”_

 _“_ Your _son!  I never wanted that damn_ thing _!  You know it!  You forced me to give birth to it and I never wanted it!  And you have the nerve to run off to live your other lives, leaving me with your worthless leavings!”_

_“Shut up!  Just shut the hell up!”  Then murmuring gently in Dennis’ ear:  “Don’t listen to her, kiddo.  Put your hands over your ears and come with me.”_

_“It’s wonderful to have you home, Clarence!  Where the hell have you been for the last two weeks?  Been missing all this time and waltz in thinking you could come back here like this!  Who are you today, any way?”  the irate woman derided.  “Who the hell_ are _you?”_

_“I’m his father!”_

_The palm of Dennis’ good hand pressed hard against his ear as instructed and he used Clarence’s shoulder to block the ear on the bad side while he was carried to Kevin’s room.  While passing the Mother Monster, Dennis buried his face into the crook of Clarence’s neck to obstruct the terrifying face of the woman who was supposed to love him.  Once in his room, Clarence shut the door behind them, placed him on the bed and crouched before him._

_“I can’t take you to the hospital or they’ll take you away from me and the system will never let me get you back.  I have to try to help you on my own here.  I need to move your arm back into its socket, kiddo.  It’s going to hurt like hell but you can scream and cry all you need to, OK?  You’re safe, she won’t come in after you, not while I’m here.”_

_Dennis nodded, wiping tears from his face, breaths coming in irregular gulps.  Clarence extended Dennis’ arm with a warning to ready him then rolled the joint back into its socket.  A white light of pain blinded him as, like any frightened child seeking comfort would, Dennis unleashed a fresh howl but instinctively reached for the man, wanting to be held.  He was not disappointed.  He was immediately sheltered back in the comforting arms while sweet words were muttered in his ear.  Affectionate as they were, the words fell on deaf ears because the boy couldn’t concentrate enough on them to understand beyond the soothing tone._

_“You’re OK, it’s over.  It’s over,” was all the little boy heard repeated in his ear._

_Several minutes later after the child was pacified, the father made a promise:  “I’ll have a sleepover with you tonight to make sure she doesn’t hurt you anymore.  Get ready for bed.  Put your jammies on.”_

_Dennis obeyed, happy to feel safe.  While he changed, Clarence took a quilt from the closet and urged him underneath._

_“I’m going downstairs to get ice for your lip,” he told the boy whose eyes reflected panic at the idea of being left alone.  “Don’t worry.  I’ll lock the door behind me.  She won’t get you.  Stay in bed and I’ll be back in a minute.”_

_He nodded, and watched with dewy eyes as the man leave the bedroom, only relaxing when the lock turned in the door.  The sound of footsteps diminished, getting farther away as Kevin’s father went downstairs.  He gasped and tensed when other footsteps sounded outside his room seconds after.  It was the Mother Monster following Kevin’s father!  Dennis drew the blanket up as a protective shield and prepared for the door to splinter as she kicked it down to get to him in Clarence’s absence.  Instead the vile woman went downstairs in pursuit of her husband and the frightened boy strained to listen.  Their angry voices wafted up from below and he resisted the impulse to cry._

_“Tell me where you’ve been,” she demanded, her voice low, threatening._

_“I’m not discussing that with you right now,” came the answer.  “I need to give my son medical attention thanks to you.”_

_“If you don’t like it, then stay home.”_

_“I can’t help it, Penelope.  I’m not even aware of leaving sometimes.”_

_“I’ll kill that goddamn thing one day when you’re gone, I swear I will!  You know I’ll do it!  I only gave birth to it for you!  Deny it if you want, but you know it’s true!  I tried to abort it but it wouldn’t die!  It stayed in me like the stubborn parasite it is!  Now it’s in this world because_ you _wanted it and you’re_ never _around to take care of it!”_

 _“That_ thing _is a_ child _named Kevin!  Our child!_ Your _child!  He grew inside you and came out of you!  He’s a little boy who depends on you!  He is_ five years old _!  Look what you did to him tonight!  What else do you do to him when I’m not here?  Everyone tells me_ I’m _sick but you’ve got me beat by a long shot!  I don’t physically assault an innocent baby like you do!”_

 _“I never wanted it!  I only wanted_ you _, Clarence!  I thought you’d stay home if I gave birth to it!  I thought it would make you better but it only made you worse!”_

_“You’re trying my patience.  If I could without repercussion I’d give you a taste of your own medicine, you miserable bitch.  Get out of my way.  I need to help my son.”_

_Soon after, Dennis heard keys jingle before the door rattled and opened.  First afraid, he cowered under the blanket, expecting the Mother Monster but when Clarence stepped into the room he sighed and nearly sobbed but wouldn’t let himself._

_“I’ve got ice for you, buddy,” he said, sitting on the edge of the bed._

_Dennis watched in wonder as Kevin’s father packed ice cubes from the bowl he carried into a small dish towel, wrapped them up and gently pressed it against his swollen lip.  The coldness startled him and he leaned back to get away from it until coaxed to hold it in place himself so that Clarence could remove his shoes and lie beside him.  The open arms he offered were instantly occupied by the scared child, his own hand replacing that of Dennis’ to secure the ice pack to the lip._

_“I’m so sorry she hurts you like this,” he whispered, stroking the boy’s back.  “It’s my fault she does this to you.  You don’t deserve it.  I’m trying to make things better for us.  I swear I am.  I’m going to get better and I’ll take you away with me.  She’ll never touch you again.”_

_The boy made a soft sound, one part pain from his ordeal and one part contentment from the promise of safety._

_“Tomorrow I’ll take you somewhere away from here.  Where would you like to go?  To the park?  To get ice cream?  Maybe we’ll go to a museum in Philadelphia or something.  Anywhere is better than here.”_

_He pressed his lips to the top of Dennis’ head and the boy’s burden lightened from a boulder to a feather.  Kevin didn’t need The Light back this soon, did he?  Dennis wanted to enjoy this unexpected reprieve from the misery he was created to bear.  The soft blankets were warm but the warmth from the man who cradled him in his arms was incomparable.  Music filled his ear when Clarence recited a soft lullaby to him, stroking the arm of the child he thought was his son.  The long, tender movements of his fingertips up and down the length of his arm soothed the boy into sighing and burrowing deeper into the crook of the man’s arm.  Slowly his body slackened enough that he fell asleep._

_Dennis was surprised when he was the one who woke up the next morning.  Kevin’s father was gently calling to him, beckoning him to wake.  Once the boy’s eyes opened, he was ushered to the bathroom where Clarence helped him out of his pajamas so he could assess the damage done by the Mother Monster.  The joints of Dennis’ jaw were badly bruised and swollen from her malicious fingers, a large bruise spread like spilled ink across his chest and back from the mangled shoulder, his back was spotted in marks from where he was beaten with the hair brush._

_“Bet you can’t open your mouth very much today, can you, Kev?”_

_Dennis didn’t even try but replied with a shake of his head._

_Clarence’s eyes brimmed with a wealth of tears he could not contain._

_“I’m so very sorry, son.  Very, very sorry.”_

_Uncomfortable by the adult’s emotions, Dennis stood still, watching the man sob until the tears ran dry._

_“Let’s clean you up so we can get out for the day.  Are you hungry?”_

_He nodded, fascinated by Clarence’s unbridled emotions.  Dennis could never grant his emotions such freedom._

_Father and sort-of son showered together where his young battered body was carefully bathed.  Toweled dry and swathed snugly in a second oversized towel draped over his wet head, Dennis was seated on the toilet to wait for Clarence to dry and wrap a towel around his waist._

_“Look what she did to you,” the distraught father lamented.  “Are you in a lot of pain?”_

_Dennis nodded._

_“Can you open your mouth yet?”_

_He shook his head.  Benevolent fingers delicately checked the joints of his jaw but Dennis fussed and pulled his head back._

_“Still hurts, huh?  You probably won’t be able to chew solid food today.  Would you like a milkshake for breakfast?”_

_Again the boy nodded._

_“Chocolate?”  Nod.  “Vanilla?”  Another nod.  “Strawberry?”  The third nod made the father laugh.  “We’ll see how many your tummy can hold.”_

_He ruffled Dennis’ hair and kissed his forehead._

_“I love you, Kevin.  I know it’s easy to forget that when I’m gone and she’s torturing you but please try to remember.  Try to hold on to my love.  I’m trying to be good.  I’m trying to help you.”_

_Not knowing what else to do, a grateful Dennis embraced Clarence, a great affection that he never knew possible brimming over the cup of his heart.  Locked in this embrace with the father, Dennis had never known love until these last handful of hours under Clarence’s care.  He didn’t want to think that this man thought he was Kevin and if he knew he wasn’t then he’d mistreat him too.  Unless he was Kevin he didn’t believe he’d be loved which broke his heart and spirit.  Why Kevin didn’t choose to reclaim The Light from him after his father saved them, Dennis didn’t know or mind.  This was the first ounce of kindness the older alter ever received and he planned on learning to be the best Kevin possible to earn more._

_After the embrace, he was whisked back into his bedroom and ceremoniously dressed in a warm sweater, pair of jeans and boots.  His shoulder still caused him a little pain and he strangled a whimper to be brave for Kevin.  Again left sitting on the bed, he waited for his caregiver who went out of the room but soon returned fully dressed.  Already in a coat, he dressed Dennis for outdoors in a coat, hat, scarf and mittens led him by the hand downstairs.  But as they attempted a stealthy departure from the house,_ she _was waiting for them on the sofa._

_“Where are you taking him?”  she demanded to know.  “Where are you going?”_

_“Out for the day.”_

_“If you leave me, I’ll tell the authorities you kidnapped him.  I’ll say you were the one who put those marks on him and that you abuse us both.  You know they’ll believe me with your history.  You’re unfit to be a father, you can’t even be one person.  You’ll never get custody.”_

_“We’ll be back tonight,” was the even tempered answer._

_Dennis tried to sneak a quick look at her over his shoulder but Clarence advised him to look ahead as he was guided out the front door.  Only then did Dennis’ worry for their safety vanish, realizing he cared as much about Kevin’s father’s welfare as he did his own.  Stepping off the Crumb stoop, Dennis was greeted by a whole new world._

_Trenton sprawled out around them, a network of concrete and steel, the like of which Dennis had never seen except partially from his bedroom window.  Everything was a daunting manmade wonderland that his senses soaked in.  His widened eyes couldn’t stay in front of him during their walk and strayed everywhere else until he collided with Clarence.  This earned him the right to be taken by Clarence’s hand, which lightened him and allowed him visual exploration._

_A few blocks from home, the pair halted at a bus stop, striking deeper curiosity in Dennis about where he was being taken.  Even if he was able, he didn’t want to ask.  He wanted it to be a surprise.  Good things never happened to him and he wanted it to last.  He stood quietly, nudging the newly fallen snow with the toe of his boot, scooping up a mitten full from the bus stop sign.  When the bus finally rolled up, he was nudged to board first, the clump of snow packed tightly in his fist._

_Dennis stared at the other passengers as Clarence flashed a bus pass to the driver and escorted him to a seat in the back.  The boy caught several displeased eyes from those who noticed the bruising on his face but he was too young to understand the implications that were being made.  Nobody said anything, at least not directly, but he was held very close to the man gifting him with this escape.  Nevertheless, the boy sat in innocent oblivion, more focused on his adventure than any scorn thrust upon them._

_Forty minutes later, Clarence signaled for the bus to stop and Dennis marveled at the bell sound.  He reached out to ring it himself but Clarence pulled him away before his fingers made contact.  Never being outside the house before, Dennis had no clue where they were; all the same, his heart pounded with excitement for the chance to experience anything that didn’t include pain or mistreatment.  He followed the father, his captive snowball long melted by the heat on the bus, kicking drifts up just enough to amuse himself but not enough to be noticed in case Clarence decided it would be fun to hurt him._

_A shiny building of crimson and chrome drew his eye and stole his breath.  He thought it was a magic place built for children and couldn’t believe his luck when he realized that was where he was going.  Inside smelled of all kinds of food that reminded him how hungry he was and the lady at the front was pretty and smiled at him as she handed him a packet of three crayons, asking them to follow her._

_Dennis sat opposite Clarence, taking in the bustling atmosphere that surrounded him.  He squeezed the package of crayons in his fist several times because he liked the rustle of the shrink wrap and watched as a paper placemat with cartoon characters he could color was set before him.  Clarence opened the crayons for him but he was already fixated on the condiments that were left askew by the table’s previous occupant.  The man watched his son arrange the jellies by flavor and the syrups by how full they were, the salt and pepper were slid side by flawless side in front of the ketchup bottle that was righted because it was left upside down._

_Satisfied with his table top reorganization, Dennis filled in the plain line cartoon characters with color, careful to not go outside the lines with an accuracy and dexterity that impressed the father.  Breakfast for him was, as promised, a strawberry milkshake, made thin upon Clarence’s request because of the bruising and swelling of his jaw.  The shake was sucked down with hungry greed and came to a quick end.  While Kevin’s father partook in an adult breakfast of eggs, toast, home fries, turkey sausage and black coffee, Dennis occupied his time with arranging the sugar packets by color:  blue, brown, pink, first by color then by size._

_“What’re you doing, Kevin?”  he asked the boy, musical amusement in his voice.  “Do you have a new hobby?”_

_Dennis didn’t know what a hobby was so he turned over the placemat to the blank side and used his arms to obstruct it from view as he scribbled a secret message.  The father watched with patience until the boy finished and slid his work over._ I <3 U _with the heart a bright throbbing red was scrawled across the white plane.  Clarence smiled, took the yellow crayon because it was the only color not used yet, wrote a message and returned it._

_Dennis stared at the note.  I <3 U 2.  He gazed at the man across from him and smiled as best as he could.  Folding it up, he tucked the note into his pocket to be saved for dark moments ahead._

_“Still hungry, kiddo?”_

_A nod was the answer.  Neither he nor Kevin had been fed for a few days.  French fries were ordered but when they came, Dennis could eat only a small portion.  The proceeding milkshake lay heavy on his empty tummy so the fries had to be packed for later.  The bill was paid and, snatching the yellow crayon as a memento, he ventured back out in the refreshing cold with Clarence._

_The child followed the adult with the blind perfect trust he had for nobody else, his hand engulfed by that of Clarence’s as they walked.  For a little kid, the walk dragged on forever, but he kept silent and observed the world around him with large eyes.  A few other people were out, walking by or driving in cars, and Dennis pondered where they might be going.  The sun was out but its light was weak.  Stream came out of his nose and mouth like a dragon and he kept exhaling hard for the pleasurable amusement of seeing it.  Finally he was a part of the world rather than segregated from it, locked away, staring out and wishing he could be anyplace other than in the house that brought him so much unhappiness._

_In the end, their destination was a park with a weird name that Dennis couldn’t pronounce.  Cadwalader Park was written on the sign.  He understood the word park perfectly and his eyes lit up.  He was going to have the chance to play!  He walked faster when his eyes met the empty playground._

_“Go ahead,” he was urged by the amused father.  “Nobody else is here yet.  It’s all yours, Kev.”_

_Without hesitation, Dennis made a mad dash to the play equipment, the slide his first choice.  Up he climbed and down he slid, giggling as he landed into Clarence’s waiting arms.  He used the slide several times under hawk-like supervision, loving the sensation of butterflies tickling inside his stomach as he sailed down.  Wanting to make it more fun, he built a wall of snow at the end of the slide that he crashed through seconds later.  That gave Clarence an idea.  He led Dennis out to an open space where they built a snowman that Dennis hugged, declaring its name was Fluffy.  The pair then built a small city that, once completed, Dennis stomped back down like Godzilla._

_In all his short life Dennis never had fun before and he was so grateful for the experience that he flung his arms around Clarence and squeezed tight, whispering that he loved him in his ear.  The phrase was muttered back with deep sincerity and Dennis received an affectionate kiss on the forehead.  He was allowed to play on the playground for another hour before being softly cajoled away because the sky was darkening.  They’d been there all day but had so much fun neither noticed how much time passed until sundown._

_On their stroll back to the bus stop, bright lights from storefront windows enticed the young Dennis to peek inside as they passed.  Clothing stores, a furniture store, a laundromat, 7-11, Wawa, a small movie theater, a handful of convenience stores.  The soft glow from a small toy store won his undivided attention when he halted in front of it.  Stuffed animals occupied the window lined with Christmas lights in a dreamland of plushy comfort to the lonely abused boy._

_“You like them?”  Clarence asked._

_Dennis nodded._

_“Which one?”_

_“All of them!”  he was able to say, his jaw feeling much better than it did in the morning._

_“Why don’t we go in and pick someone out to take home?  Would you like that?”_

_“Yes!”_

_When Clarence opened the door, a tiny bell above it jingled, drawing Dennis’ attention.  He stepped in and paused, staring up at the bell until Clarence nudged him forward to get him to move again.  Only then did the boy make a bee-line for the window.  Afraid of the consequences that reaching out for the toys might mean, he stopped and only stared with longing at them.  There were a five member family of bears varying in size, a pair of bunnies, a giraffe, an elephant, two parrots, a cat and a dog._

_“More are over here, kid,” Clarence’s voice informed from somewhere._

_Dennis followed his voice to the aisle he was in and his eyes widened when he saw the jungle of stuffed animals they found.  It was enough to fill an ark.  Clarence held out a teddy bear to him and he took it absently, undecided as to which animal he liked best.  His eyes roamed over the sea of softness before he picked up one, then another and another until he cradled six animals in his arms._

_Clarence laughed, “You have to choose one, Kevin.  Only one.”_

_“I want more.”_

_“I know you do.  But…”_

_“They want to play with me.”_

_“Do they?”_

_”I don’t have friends to play with.”_

_A shadow descended upon Clarence’s countenance like the curtain of night but Dennis was busy trying to cram more animals into his arms, stooping to pick up the few he dropped, and barely noticed._

_“I know you don’t, buddy,” was Clarence’s demure lament.  “I’m sorry.”  Fault in that truth drove him to compromise.  “Hey.  Maybe you can have a couple of them.  Choose three of your favorites.”_

_“Three?”_

_Dennis couldn’t believe his luck when Clarence nodded._

_“I want them all,” protested Dennis, obstinate._

_“Three, Kevin.  That’s enough for now.”  He hunkered down to the child’s level.  “But maybe Santa will bring more when he comes.”_

_Dennis wasn’t sure who Santa was but if he was going to bring more stuffed toys soon he liked him._

_“Three,” he repeated and set to trying to decide._

_First choice was the bear that was Clarence’s initial offering and a monkey he found himself but fell short of choosing the final toy.  Sighing, he heard the crinkle of the shrink wrap in his pocket and remembered the yellow crayon.  That was when his eyes fell on a yellow knitted style lion and he knew that was the last choice.  He nearly tripped over the animals he’d dropped to reach it but Clarence steadied him and handed over what he wanted.  Clarence placed the remaining plushes back on their shelves as Dennis fussed over his new friends then, discovering he was suddenly alone, followed Clarence to the register._

_A kindly old man with short, snowy white hair, a neatly trimmed beard and glasses smiled at him from behind the counter.  He looked like a toymaker from old Bavaria that Dennis saw in storybooks._

_“Hello!”  the toymaker greeted.  “What’s your name?”_

_Without thinking, the boy replied, “Dennis…”_

_“_ Dennis _?!”  Clarence exclaimed, puzzled.  “Where did_ that _come from?”  Then to the older man:  “His name is Kevin.”_

_“Kids never change,” chuckled the old man.  With a sympathetic grimace, he addressed Dennis again:  “Looks like you’ve had a rough day, Kevin.”_

_“Bullies start young,” Clarence explained._

_“That’s a shame.  Would you like a lollipop, young man?”_

_Dennis nodded and was presented with a blue plastic bucket filled with Dum Dums.  He found one with a pineapple on it and that was the one he picked because it was yellow.  Rather than opening its wrapper to be eaten, he placed it in his pocket with the crayon and the shrink wrap.  He wanted as many treasures as possible to commemorate this day when he needed good memories of sunshine to cling to in the darkness.  Gratitude dissipated when the old man leaned down to take the animals away from him._

_“He needs them only for a second, Kevin,” told Clarence.  “Just one second.  He’ll give them right back.”_

_Giving him a sheepish but pointed look, the child hugged the toys tight against his chest when the old man leaned down for a second attempt to take them from him.  Clarence pried the stuffed animals from Dennis and the old man typed something from the tag into the register before letting the child take them again._

_“They’re all ready to go home with you now,” the old toymaker assured._

_The teddy bear and monkey were put inside a large plastic bag that Clarence took; the lion stayed cuddled in his arms._

_“Let’s get dinner and then we’ll go home,” Clarence suggested after he thanked the old man and he and Dennis were back out on the powdery sidewalk._

_“I don’t_ want _to go home,” whined Dennis, clutching the lion tighter._

_“I know, baby, I know.  But I’m going to be there with you and she won’t touch you.  I promise.”_

_Dennis was afraid to believe him and it weighed heavy on his mind during the dinner they ate on a return visit to the shiny diner.  Since he was now able to open his mouth, Clarence ordered a cheeseburger from the children’s menu for him that he chewed carefully, complaining he wanted another milkshake instead._

_“You need to eat real food, Kevin,” reasoned Clarence.  “You need to grow up big and strong and you need real food to do that.  Hurry and finish eating.  Then we’ll go home and you know what we’ll do?”_

_He shook his head, mouth full of cheeseburger._

_“We’ll build a blanket fort and sleep in it.  Does that sound fun?”_

_He nodded in answer, his blue eyes starred with elation._

_“You need to get to bed.  You’re starting to get cranky.  You had a busy day.”_

_On the bus ride back, Dennis nestled against Clarence and stared out through the windshield with the glazed eyes of the exhausted.  By the time they got off, Clarence had to carry the half sleeping boy.  Dennis snuggled into the crook of his neck, drifting in and out of consciousness because he was sleepy but worried about going home._

_The abrupt halt in Clarence’s gait, the fumbling for keys, the house key turning in the lock, the creak of the front door swinging open into darkness woke Dennis up with alacrity.  With droopy eyes, he peered into the dark of the house but saw only the silhouette of furniture.  As they stepped inside, his body tensed and arms clung against Clarence more snugly._

_“It’s OK, buddy, it’s OK.”_

_A glare of light from the kitchen cut through Dennis’ bleary vision.  He whimpered and tightened his embrace around Clarence’s neck who attempted in vain to soothe him.  Clarence bent to release him and, as Dennis slowly slipped from his arms and his feet firmly planted on the floor, he immediately ducked behind the adult’s longer legs.  He didn’t want her to see him!_

_Nev_ _ertheless, he trudged behind Clarence into the Mother Monster’s domain with unnerved footsteps, hovering as close to the father’s legs as he could without tripping him.  There she was.  Sitting at the table in all her monstrous glory with a spread of cold food laid out before her, she made eye contact with him and scowled.  It was so vindictive a look that he hugged against Clarence, wrapping his arms around his legs so forcefully that the grown-up nearly toppled._

_“There you are,” she sneered.  “I waited all night, cooked dinner for us.”_

_“I don’t see three places set,” pointed out Clarence._

_Penelope didn’t answer but her frigid, heartless expression spoke for her._

_“We already ate dinner,” continued Clarence.  “I’m taking Kevin upstairs to bed.  Don’t wait up for me.  I’m spending the night with him.  I just wanted you to know we’re home.”_

_A hand on the child’s shoulder turned him around and pushed him forward, out of the room so that he didn’t have any exposure to the evil Mother Monster.  Scaling the stairs in front of Clarence, Dennis’ eyes strayed to the light again, attracted by her sobbing._

_“Don’t worry about her, Kevin,” Clarence muttered quietly.  “She isn’t your problem.  Keep climbing.”_

_Dennis’ young sympathy was brief.  Doing as told, he climbed faster, thinking at any given second she’d come at them like a rabid dog.  Finally away from her, they dashed into his bedroom where they undressed out of their winter attire.  Clarence’s effort to hang Dennis’ coat in the closet was thwarted when the boy voiced a disapproving “No!”  He grabbed the coat and unburied the sentimental keepsakes collected during the day and arranged them with his animals on the bed._

_“Done?”  Clarence inquired before hanging up the coat after the boy nodded._

_Dennis perched on the bed, cuddling his new stuffed friends and squeezing the shrink wrap in his fist as Clarence yanked a stack of blankets from the top shelf of the closet.  When he left the room to go where the child did not know, Dennis didn’t feel the same level of terror he normally did.  His friends were a blockade that surrounded and defended him.  Moments later, Clarence returned with a second stack of blankets and only then did he shut the door behind him._

_“Let’s build our fort,” he urged, smiling at the gleam of joy in Dennis’ bright blue eyes._

_For the next half hour the pair bonded through the construction of a cozy fort made entirely of fleece blankets with a few quilts lining the floor for added comfort.  The wall that had the outlet for Kevin’s night light was included and Clarence switched on the little light to shine on their labors.  The side open because of the bed was walled in with a line of pillows wedged in the space, boy and man taking turns laying one pillow brick in their wall.  Dennis chose that side as his own because he liked the padded wall and he arranged the monkey and the bear between himself and the pillows.  The yellow crayon, shrink wrap and declaration of love between the father and child were placed in front of the toys._

_“You saved all of that stuff today?”  asked Clarence, deep in thought._

_Dennis nodded and hugged the yellow lion._

_Clarence smiled then placed a few more pillows against the real wall where their heads would rest then finally placed two down to lay on._

_“It’s warm!”  declared Dennis happily._

_Clarence chuckled.  “That’s the idea, kiddo.  We’ll be safe and cozy tonight.”_

_He kissed Dennis’ forehead, a habitual gesture the child came to love, and told him to follow.  Reluctant to leave the snug warmth they created, Dennis nevertheless crawled out and trailed after Clarence to the bathroom where they prepared for bed, the precious yellow lion held tightly in the boy’s embrace._

_“Looks like he’s your favorite,” was Clarence’s whimsical comment._

_“His name is Roary because he roars.”_

_“He roars?  Let me hear him.”_

_Dennis held the stuffed toy up between them.  “Rrrrrraaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrr!!!”_

_Clarence laughed but Dennis grew serious again._

_“If I was a lion,” mused Dennis, “nobody could hurt me.”_

_Not knowing how to respond, Clarence simply kissed the child’s forehead and checked the marks on his small, thin frame.  The impressions of the hair brush across his back disappeared but in their place were blue bruises.  The lip was no longer pouty with swelling but still sported a nasty cut.  The shoulder was by far the worst of the injuries with a dark purple blotch sprawling over the area from front to back like spilled ink but the shoulder was mobile in spite of the pain the boy was in when Clarence rotated it._

_“Do you need medicine to stop the hurting?”_

_Dennis nodded, wiping escaped tears from his eyes.  He swallowed the pill he was given, chased it with a swallow of water and hugged Roary the lion tighter still.  Outside the bathroom door were footsteps that startled him and he huddled against Clarence in terror.  Clarence braced himself but the Mother Monster passed by without acknowledgment._

_“Let’s go,” Clarence whispered._

_They rushed quietly back into the bedroom where Clarence locked the door behind them as Dennis hurriedly crawled back into the fort, dragging his toy lion behind him._

_That night was the best one young Dennis ever had.  Cocooned in a fleecy nest of joy, love and warmth, sheltered from abuse, he was free to be a child like he’d never been before.  He giggled with a happiness that was never before imagined and impossible for him to wish for.  He didn’t care that his jaw was still sore or that he could hardly move his shoulder; he laughed with abandon despite his split lip and talked more than ever in his life.  Out of the blue, he hugged Clarence and sighed when his adoring arms encircled him in return._

_“What’s this?”  he asked, pointing to the pair of glasses on Clarence’s face, his finger nearly colliding with one of the lenses until Clarence dodged backward._

_“Those are my glasses.  Everything is blurry when I take them off.  They help me see.  Here try them on.”_

_The glasses felt strange on the bridge of Dennis’ nose and he didn’t understand how Clarence said everything was blurry but clear with the glasses on.  For him, it was the opposite and, fascinated, Dennis kept lifting the glasses off his nose and putting them back on, amazed by the difference._

_“It’s blurry with them on,” he announced, putting them back down and looking at the parent through them._

_“That’s because you don’t need them.  Your vision is perfect.  Be careful not to break them.  I still need them, silly billy.”_

_He looked at everything around him while wearing the glasses, feeling like a grown-up and wondering why he could see without them.  Roary was a yellow smudge that looked like he was in a funhouse mirror and his own hand looked alien when he held it out to see.  Unable to figure out the mystery, he finally let Clarence take them back._

_They then played with the new stuffed animals, making voices and pretending the bear and monkey were on a quest to steal Roary’s treasure, which consisted of the yellow crayon, the note and shrink wrap.  They drew pictures on plain white paper but Dennis got the idea for each of them to color the other’s drawing.  Dennis’ was of a lion and Clarence’s was stick figures of him and Kevin playing in the park on a summer day.  When Clarence picked up an orange crayon for the lion, Dennis handed the sacred yellow crayon over as a substitute.  Smiling, he accepted and colored the lion the way the boy wanted.  Sooner than later, a drowsy Dennis yawned and rubbed his eyes until bedtime was professed.  As they cuddled under the blankets, Dennis in Clarence’s arms, Roary in Dennis’ arms, Clarence told a bedtime story but Dennis fell asleep before the conclusion._

_Kevin was asleep in the bed in The Dark and Dennis stood in place, watching the other boy sleep.  His instincts were to slip in and hold him but he paused, hesitant to his host that his father was home and improving their lives.  Dennis got hurt all the time while protecting Kevin.  The whipping boy needed this peaceful break just as much as Kevin did.  What Kevin didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him this time._

_He decided he would keep it secret for now.  Kevin was fine here, out of reach of the Mother Monster.  He knew without asking that Kevin stayed hidden out of The Light because he was tired of hurting and didn’t want to feel pain or fear for a time.  Dennis longed for the same.  Since his responsibility was to protect Kevin and he was in current possession of The Light, the best Dennis could hope for was the comfort the man next to him provided.  He wanted Kevin’s father.  He wanted his stuffed friends.  He wanted this blanket fort that was in the center of the horror yet was worlds away when he was inside its fleecy walls._

_Squirming, he moved in deeper against Clarence with a contented sigh.  Safe!  Dennis never understood the full meaning of that word until now.  He had never been safe before and he was certain Clarence wouldn’t hurt him.  What broke the boy’s heart was knowing Clarence wouldn’t love or want to protect him if he knew he wasn’t Kevin and that scarred Dennis’ fragile, impressionable mind.  He loved this man.  Why couldn’t he love Dennis like he loved Kevin, or at least a little?  Just a little dot of love was enough for him, he didn’t dare to ask for more than that._

****

The room was hot from the many candles lit around the room yet when Casey attempted to blow one out, Dennis stopped her in a panic.

“Are you afraid of the dark?”  she asked.

“Yeah, I am.”

“That’s surprising.  I wouldn’t have expected that from you.  You’re the strong protector.  You don’t seem to be afraid of anything.”

“I’m afraid of plenty.  I just can’t show it.”

“Because you’re the protector.”

“I’d lose my place if I showed fear.  Kevin and the others, whether they like it or not, depend on me.”

“What do you fear most?”

Unskilled at communicating, he paused, careful of the words he chose lest she think ill of him.  Here was the opportunity he’d wanted to get her to understand him and possibly like him, to befriend her.  Loneliness sickened his heart but it was revitalized at the prospect of friendship.  Despite his great desire to talk, he worried that he would say too much or the wrong thing altogether.  The last thing he wanted was to have this girl detest him any more than she already did.  Anything he said could be misconstrued and he’d find himself persecuted and nailed to a cross by her.  This Q&A session was an olive branch to try to gain trust and compassion and he prayed he did not burn it. 

“Before Patricia and I took control, Barry kept us in The Dark for ten years.  I sat in that Dark, not knowin’ if or when I would ever take The Light anymore, afraid I’d never live again, bein’ told by those in control that I didn’t have the right to exist.”

“Sounds awful.”

“It hurts to be discarded like you’re nothin’.  One time Kevin’s mother had him talk to a preacher because she was convinced he was possessed by a devil.  It was a way for her to not take responsibility for what she did to create us.  Yellow is our favorite color and it’s the color of sulphur, the main composite of Hell.  With a son who regularly acted like other people and who favored yellow, she concluded we were evil.  The preacher told Kevin about Hell where doomed souls choked in sulphur and smoke and burned in everlastin’ hellfire.  His wild story scared Kevin to death.  But I know that Hell is that Darkness, the absence of The Light, a cold rejection that burns with the ferocity of an inferno.”

The corners of her mouth twitched upward in a faint but quick smile.

“That sounded like poetry.”

His eye brow arched and he asked defensively, “You expected me to be stupid?”

“I didn’t know what to expect.  You seem to be more physical than cerebral.”

Which meant, he knew, that she imagined he was stupid.  But he ignored it, even though it hurt.

“So putting you inside this hellish Darkness…”

“Denied me of my humanity and the right to exist.”

“And _Barry_ did that to you?”

“Yeah.  He’s convinced that I’m a mistake, that we all are:  Hedwig, Patricia and I.  We were the first to emerge, the ones who suffered at the hands of Kevin’s mother.  The others came later, in better times.  So we are undesirables.  The ones who should not be, who should never have been.  And they think I’m the biggest mistake of them all.”

“Because you were the first.”

“Among other reasons.  They don’t know the things we’ve suffered.  If we’re a mistake, then so are they.  Without us, _they_ wouldn’t exist.  The others taunt us by callin’ us The Horde.  I _hate_ that term and now that’s what the world is callin’ us.  The Beast promised a revolution and all we got so far is the loss of the only stability we had and a disgusting nickname.  And the others?  They don’t understand anything.  They don’t know what it’s like to not belong, to wanna be a part of something, anything.  I can’t imagine a worse feeling than bein’ rejected and told you don’t deserve to exist, especially if the rejection comes from those you’ve been loyal to without fail and put yourself in harm’s way to protect.”

She noted his agitation and steered the conversation elsewhere.

“What exactly is The Light?  Hedwig said he controls it.”

Dennis sighed to relieve his frustration.  “I don’t know how that kid managed to become The Lightbearer but I think it’s because he was a bridge between the two groups.  Us and them; The Horde and the others.  Patricia only tolerates him and can be harsh with him at times but I understand the kid.  Unlike any of the others, I was a child who grew with Kevin.  I’m three years older than Kevin but when the others came into existence they came the age they stay forever.”

“Why is that?”

Dennis shrugged.  “Don’t know.  I think because Kevin was very young and he just wanted a big brother.  I was the one who came to fill the position.  When I first took The Light, I was six.  Only three years younger than Hedwig.  That kid is special, even before he took control of The Light.   He is what we could have been…what we _should_ have been… and it’s important that he stays that way.  Some of the others like to tease him.  He gets on my nerves too but it makes me angry that they would treat him that way.  He’s only a kid.  Like I once was.  He needs to be protected.  Barry and Jade spend a lot of time with him and they’re two of the three leaders from the other group.  Hedwig sorta bridges the gap.”

“But what _is_ The Light?”

Dennis offered a weak smile.  “I apologize.  I forget sometimes.  I don’t get to talk so openly to many people.  Dr. Fletcher was the only one I ever really opened myself up to and I don’t have her anymore.”

“It’s OK.”

“The Light is Kevin’s consciousness.  We’re all in a room, seated in chairs facin’ The Light.  The farther back in the room we are, the darker it is because The Light comes in through Kevin’s eyes.  Standin’ in The Light is like bein’ on a stage only you get to see outside into the real world.”

“Sounds kind of cool.”

“The Light is very harsh if your purpose in it is to get hurt.”

“So you came into existence as the protector, to take the punishment Kevin couldn’t?”

“It was like bein’ jarred from a deep sleep by a fist to the side of my head.  I took control when Kevin was three years old.  I’m three years older than he is.”

“His mother started abusing him when he was only three?”

“Yeah.  She was _exceptionally_ cruel.  Relentless.  Heartless.  She dehumanized him, liked referrin’ to him as a dirty animal and a filthy beast.  She forced him to eat from a dog’s dish on the floor and stopped callin’ him by his name for a week because he accidentally tipped over a plate of food.  She ordered him to eat it off the floor like the animal he was.  She made a sport out of the abuse.  As time passed, he started to believe her and when he acted like an animal by lashin’ out, she condemned him for it.  I think she did it because of the compassion Kevin’s father gave him.”

“She competed with Kevin for his attention.”

“Mmm hmm.  She was in school, workin’ on a degree in pharmacology when she got pregnant with Kevin.  He was an unplanned and very unwanted pregnancy for her.  However, when Kevin’s father found out, he was excited to be a parent and convinced her to not terminate the pregnancy.  He expected she’d change her mind and they’d be a happy little family so he married her.  But he was wrong.  The more time passed, the more she resented Kevin for bein’ born.  There wasn’t anybody else to watch Kevin and they couldn’t afford to pay anybody.  She had to quit school but she never went back.  Things kept gettin’ worse.  Kevin’s father left for long periods of time and she took her anger out on Kevin until he couldn’t be coaxed back into The Light for any real length of time, not even for his father.  He loved his father but he didn’t think his love was reciprocated.  I knew it was.  He came to my rescue several times when he was home.  I loved him too but I knew he didn’t love me.  Maybe that’s where Kevin was mistaken.” 

A faint smile passed over Dennis’ lips before he continued.

“He gave us some stuffed animals for Christmas one year because he knew we were friendless and lonely.  I carried my favorite one _everywhere_.”

Casey laughed sweetly and asked, “What was it?”

Dennis returned the laugh with a wide, nostalgic smile, his eyes peering off into the years past.  “A lion.  I named him Roary.  I kept him for years as a keepsake that someone loved us once.  But one of the others, probably Barry, threw him away.  Everything of mine was thrown away.”

“You and Barry clash a lot, don’t you?”

“He’s the virtuous, outgoing one.  I’m nothing more than an abomination to him.  He doesn’t ever think that he’s one to me.”

“Is he?”

“Barry has urges as unnatural as mine.”

“What do you mean?”

Dennis’ frowned, his face hardening.  “He likes to be with other men.  That isn’t right.”

“Oh.  I see.  Well… Do you blame Kevin’s father for what happened to you and Kevin?”

“No.  Not at all.  Kevin’s mother _chose_ to hurt us.  She didn’t have to, not at any time.  Whether Kevin’s father was there or not.  He was the one and only positive thing in our lives.  He promised me he was gettin’ help to make her stop hurtin’ us.  He meant it.  I know he did.  He _wouldn’t_ have left….”

“But he _did_ leave, Dennis.”

Her words hit like brass knuckles.  Trying to regain composure and ward off an urge to punch the wall, it took several empty moments before he said in an unstable, tormented breath: “He left us because of me.”

“You don’t know that.”

“You think a man wouldn’t know his own son?  He realized I was an imposter and left us to deal with her on our own.”

“But you don’t hate him for it.”

“No.  I would’ve left too if I could.”

“I understand why you couldn’t.”

His expressions flowed across his face like water over a flat surface, from rage to sentiment to shock.  “You do?”

Nodding, she murmured that she did.

“Durin’ my time in The Light I worked a lotta construction and maintenance jobs.  I like to keep my hands busy with work because if I don’t bad things happen.  The zoo was my favorite place.  I was only in The Light there for a few months but it was glorious. I enjoyed walking alone through the grounds at night.  I pitied the animals because they were trapped like I used to be and thought maybe I could ease their sadness in captivity.”

“You felt one with them.”

The anguish on his face cut her deep.  For the first time, in hearing the ugly details, genuine sympathy formed within her for him.  This man had been abused so badly that he broke apart.  As bad as her life with John was, it hadn’t ever been anything this severe.

“I _was_ one with them.  Part of why was because of Kevin’s mother’s perverse pride in humiliating her son.  That all stopped when we got older.  Then she changed the direction of her abuse but the damage was done and it was severe.  Even I wasn’t strong enough to resist.  I hate myself for bein’ so submissive.  I was just the one who could cope better.  If you wanna completely destroy a person, you dehumanize them.  They have nowhere to go, they retreat back to their basest instincts.”

“You had no choice, Dennis.  You were alone, what could you do?”

“I could’ve tried.  I will never forgive myself for not tryin’.”

“She broke you down until you weren’t able to fight back.  She made you feel less than what you were worth.  Don’t blame yourself for what wasn’t your fault.”

“I remember the day he left us.  Kevin was in The Light first but he couldn’t handle his father leavin’ again.  He cried a little.  Not enough to make a scene, just quietly to himself.  But she noticed and when his father walked away to use the bathroom, she called Kevin a sissy and told him to act like a man.  She raised her hand to hit him and I stepped into The Light to take the blow.  It never came but Kevin’s father knew somethin’ was wrong when he returned.  Knowin’ wasn’t enough to make him stay.  He bought me a donut as a treat and told me to not worry, that he was getting’ help and comin’ back for us.  Then he boarded the train and we never saw him again.”

He took a deep breath and his face pinched as if he was either tired or attempting to control an urge to break down.  With all of the poison seeping out of him, Casey suspected the strongman was cracking at his foundation.

Dennis’ recuperation was practiced and quick.  Then he dropped a bomb.

“The Beast first took The Light on the anniversary of Kevin’s father leavin’ us.  It was meant to be like the changin’ of the guard.  Kevin’s father was our protector when he was around.  That night The Beast took over to avenge us.”

“Is that what this is all about?  Revenge?”

Dennis glared at her as if she missed a crucial point he’d been trying to make and maybe she was.

“This is _revolution_ , Casey.  All of our untapped potential is only just surfacin’.  The Beast is here to prove to the world that The Broken are not the downtrodden, that we are a higher form of human evolution…”

“Yeah, I got that loud and clear the first time.”

Flustered, he stopped talking and trained his focus on window where the rain was coming in.

“I need to fix that,” he deliberated aloud.  “We don’t have much and we don’t need it ruined by rain.”

“When you said you like to keep your hands busy or bad things happen… what did you mean?”

His eyes directed back at her with the intensity of a serial killer and she wanted to vanish into the wall and forget she existed.

 _It’s his defense mechanism_ , she reminded herself.  Only then was she able to withstand it and dare to return the gaze.

“You know what I meant,” he growled, crossing his arms over his chest.

Another defense mechanism, she knew.  He was open and willing to discuss the uncounted horrors he’d suffered as a child but this one unspoken matter was the raw nerve that Casey manipulated like marionette strings.

“You promised you’d answer any of my questions.”

“You still haven’t told me what you promised.”

Damn.  He nailed her.  She owed him.

“I’ll only answer your question about that if you answer mine,” he insisted, his trademark severity returning from the blue haze of a once upon a time when he owned a sliver of happiness.

Casey paused, not wanting to meet his hardened eyes again as she thought about how she was going to say what she needed to say.

“I cut myself,” she opted for simplicity.

“Why?”

The arch of his brow raised higher as he studied her, testing to see how far he could push her.  She wanted to throw something at him just to divert that unbroken stare if for but a second.

“You’re like us, aren’t you?  You’re one of The Broken.  That’s why The Beast spared you.  He mentioned your scars before I saw them.  But I didn’t think you cut yourself.”

“What did you think?”

“That someone did it to you.  That you were tortured and abused like us.”

She hugged herself as if her midriff was exposed and John leered at her from across the room, hiding what Dennis could not see but knew was there.  Self-hate caressed her like the serrated tip of a shark’s tooth, an executioner to the confidence she maintained while interrogating him.  Now was her turn on the block and it was a slow death.

“No,” she admitted, “I did it to myself.”

“Why?”  he pressed, his voice softening.

“Remember in the beginning when you took my friend Marcia into the next room?”

“Yeah…”

“I told her to pee on herself so you’d leave her alone.”

Dennis scowled and leaned back in his chair, folded arms hugging tighter against his chest.  Mention of his unwanted, indignant golden shower raised his defensiveness and discomfort though he tried to not squirm.

“That was clever to tell your friend to urinate,” he allowed.  “Was that another huntin’ trick?”

She shook her head; from her vantage point the dim light of the candles cast strange shadows over his face and it creeped her out.  He was as utterly terrifying as he was sweetly desperate, a remorseful serial killer reflecting on his origins.  Only he wasn’t a serial killer.  The Beast was.

“No,” she whispered.  “It was a self-preservation trick.”

He tilted his head to one side just enough to push him from serial killer to a compassionate friend.

“What?  You mean…”  Truth didn’t hit him so much as it crept upon him along with all the regret an apologetic offender would show in a courtroom.  His response was a strangled whisper of:  “No…”

“When I was six,” she started, “my father died of a hereditary heart disease that took my grandfather too.  I never knew until the worst possible thing happened.  They decided to keep it a secret from me.  I was young and didn’t understand.  Scared because my Uncle John, my father’s brother, took me in.  My dad was a widower and made John and his wife Caroline my legal guardians in case...  There was just nobody else or any other place for me to go.  But my dad didn’t know that he wasn’t the only one keeping secrets, that John and I had a secret of our own.  I couldn’t tell him.He loved John.  They were very close and all that was left of the Cooke family.  I didn’t want to dissolve that relationship, even though it was expensive for me.”

“Why didn’t your aunt do somethin’?”

“She didn’t know.”

Dennis scoffed.  “At least Kevin’s father was aware of what was goin’ on and tried to do somethin’ about it.”

The unexpected venom took Casey aback but she knew it wasn’t directed at her.

“I never told her because she loved John too.”

The disgust and anger on Dennis’ face deepened and the shadows awarded him the appearance of a frightening gargoyle preparing to pounce on an perceived threat.

“ _Everyone_ loved John,” she explained.  “That was the problem.  Outwardly, he was such a great guy.  Friendly, charismatic, he knew how to handle people and what to say.  I think if I told anyone, nobody would’ve believed me.  I was just the troubled girl lashing out because of her father’s death.  He took full advantage of that.”

“Your father would’ve believed you.”

“Maybe.  But I can’t dwell on that.  Knowing probably would’ve killed him sooner.  Like you were trying to protect Kevin, I was trying to protect my father.”

Their common ground softened his nail-tough countenance.

“How old were you when he started?”

“Very young.  He used to join us on our hunting trips out in Bucks County.  There was a game he made up where we pretended to be animals.  As you know, animals don’t wear clothes.”

The quote made her stomach knot and she fought the urge to vomit.  She waiting for Dennis to remark that even The Beast knew to keep his pants on but he was too engrossed in the story and leaned forward very slightly in the chair, staring back with pensive deliberation.  He looked like he wanted to tell her something.

“When I was younger,” she continued, “it was just touching places on our bodies that I knew, even then, were inappropriate.  He didn’t have actual intercourse with me until I was older.”

Sensing her averseness to tell him what he wanted to know, he pressed harder:  “How old?”

“Thirteen.  After I started my period.”

Dennis grappled with a quiet, underlying rage he didn’t know what to do with.  She suspected he wanted to punch something, preferably John, but settled for a deep sigh and shift in the creaking chair.  If he looked frightening before, he looked dangerous now, a short-fused bomb waiting to detonate on the right person if given the chance.  She was aware that she was safe from being targeted and she swelled with appreciation for his unprecedented ability to keep control.  Being the great protector, he preferred to direct his ire toward the appropriate person.

“His job had an early morning start time which meant he also had an early dismissal that gave him a few hours alone with me before my aunt came home from work.  After school one day I was in my room, trying to stay away from him but he opened the door and entered without my permission.  He sat on the bed and interrogated me about boys.  Did I have a boyfriend?  Was I interested in any boy at school?  Did I ever touch a boy in that way?  Or anybody else besides him.”

Dennis shook his head and said with a curled lip, “He wanted to see if anybody else tainted his property.”

“Exactly.  He said now I got my period and was older, it was normal for me to want sex.  ‘If it bleeds, it can breed’ he used to say.  He told me that he was glad I was a virgin and that it was his right to deflower me because he’d waited all those years.  Before I knew it, we were unclothed and he was on top of me… inside me… and it hurt so bad.  He was so heavy and I could barely breathe.  All I kept thinking was please hurry, please finish, please end.  It became a mantra in my head to distract me.  Then it was over.  He didn’t care if he got me pregnant.  He finished inside me, grumbled that I had to go on birth control and left.”

A wall of emotion around her crumbled with this first time confession to another person who wasn’t an authority figure.  Dennis wanted to know because he cared and experienced similar trauma; the authorities wanted to know because it was their job, nothing more.

“Did he ever?”

Dennis didn’t need to clarify what he meant.  She knew.

“Once.  I was two months and terrified.  I didn’t know what to do so I did nothing.  Luckily I miscarried one night.”

There was a drastic change in the atmosphere between them and he was appalled at the imagery.  Casey felt that if he wasn’t himself afraid of touch then he would’ve taken her into his arms out of empathy.  He remained immobile in the chair, arms still crossed over his chest, face still frozen in a mixture of disgust and compassion.

“Your scars.  Were they from an attempt to…”

“Like Kevin, I wanted to be somewhere or someone else while it happened.  I felt dirty when it was over.  No amount of washing could get him off me.  I wanted to scrape the skin from my body.  Everywhere he touched was polluted.  I cut myself to purge him from me, like those people in asylums who think bugs crawl on their bodies.  It was the only way I could handle what he did to me.”

“He knew.  The Beast.  He knew you were like us.  That you were able to endure what we couldn’t.  That you remained whole while we became The Broken.  That’s why he spared you.  You are strong, stronger than us.  Stronger than _me_.”

“I wasn’t strong!”  she said, a sharp edge in her voice. “I was weak!  I was weak because I never tried to get help!  I kept his dirty secret from everyone I loved because I thought they would hate _me_!  I spent my whole life being his fuck toy, scared to say a word!  That’s weak and I hate myself for it so much I tried to cut it away!”

“N-no, Casey, no!  Please don’t.  Don’t s-say those things about yourself.  You mean so much to us because of what happened to you.  You’re like us and you said yourself that it isn’t a bad thing.  _It wasn’t our fault!_ ”

He was right, she knew, in throwing her own words back at her but that didn’t prevent her from being upset.  A hard smack across his concerned face would improve her mood but when she raised her open hand it was to see if her own face was dry of tears.  Thank god it was.  His worry melted away his fearsome wrath from before but that wrath transferred to her.  Vindictiveness filled her and she hated him again.  She didn’t want his concern or sympathy.  What she did want for forcing her to remember was his blood.

“Your turn again,” she told him, her voice terse.

This time he was less angry and more upset.

“What do you wanna know?”

“What bad things happen if you don’t keep your hands busy?”

He sighed , an Atlas whose shoulders quaked from the weight of inestimable, secretive vulgarities, and tried to look anywhere in the room but at her.

“You know,” he insisted.

“Tell me.  Come clean.”

Casey’s heart leapt into her throat when the question left her mouth, so direct and terrible.  Marcia told her and Claire what Dennis wanted but, like Caroline’s suspicions the day she returned home, Casey was afraid there was more to the story than what she told.  Dennis was alone with Marcia for mere minutes but lives could change forever in a split second.  She hated to ask but needed to know.  Eyes like the blue flame of a blow torch turned back onto her, scorching her with its intense light.  Then she threw the gasoline on the fire.

“What did you do to Marcia when you took her into the other room?”

****

_The heat was oppressive after a heavy rain that had been the failed hope of cooling down an already unbearable temperature.  The humidity rose and clung to everything like a choking, invisible fog after the storm the night before.  Philadelphia was sweltering.  That didn’t stop visitors from coming out to the zoo but Dennis hibernated in the cool relief of his office as long and as often as possible._

_The heat hadn’t been the only reason he was hidden away.  He was avoiding Bryn and the confession he needed to give her.  It was inevitable yet he couldn’t help but delay it.  He liked the girl, was grateful for her intentions, but often it hurt to look at her.  Doing so was a stark reminder of all the awful things he was comprised of.  He didn’t deserve what she gave him or what she offered.  She was too young for him and even a friendship was wrong with the big gap that gulfed between their ages._

_Wrong always felt good.  Her panties were in the top drawer of his desk and, in remembering them, he took them out and raised them to his nose.  The sweet, erotic scent she left behind still lingered there and he inhaled deep.  Since she gifted him with them, he’d carried them nearly everywhere, conscientious enough to lock them in the drawer if he needed to leave the office.  He didn’t want that blessed scent to be spoiled by mingling with other smells, especially not of his own sweat.  Treating himself to another deep whiff, his penis swelled against the seam of his pants.  He stroked his agitated manhood through the heavy cloth then brought the panties down to slowly rub over it underneath the desk, a vivid picture of the seashell pink of her cunt in his mind._

_A knock on the door startled him and his remorseful hand tucked the panties back into the drawer.  He pretended to look at an expense report on the computer screen when Hauser entered, his stench coming before him._

_“There’s a light out in the reptile house,” he said.  “I’m gonna replace it.  Just wanted to check in and see if there’re any other open tickets over there that I can close.”_

_“Yeah,” answered Dennis, trying to hold his breath against the choking fingers of the offensive body odor from the heavily sweating man.  It was a violent intrusion and drastic change from the enjoyable bouquet of teenage pussy.  “There’s a clog in one of the pipes of the caiman hold you can find and fix.  That’s the only other thing that’s come in for the reptile house.”_

_“Nobody else is on it?”_

_“It just came in a few minutes ago.  I haven’t had the chance to send anybody over.”_

_“OK, I’m on it, boss.”_

_And he was gone, leaving the demon stench behind.  The risk of offense gone, Dennis put on a dust mask to deal with the odor then lit a small Yankee Candle on his desk to exorcise the demon.  Thinking better of their location, he put the panties in his pocket so that they wouldn’t be touched at all by the stench if it seeped into the drawer.  With the hope that nobody else was around to see the hardness between his legs, he left the concealment the desk afforded to open his office door to air it out.  The panties were safe, away from the permeating stench that would ruin them.  Time to think of other things._

_The chair almost wheeled out from under him when he tried to sit again, rolling back across the linoleum floor until he grabbed hold to stabilize it.  Back to the world of maintenance tickets, budgets, ordering supplies and research.  Lately he’d taken great fascination with parkour and rock climbing and downloaded a few videos from a website to watch at the end of the day.  He planned on putting them on his flashdrive and watch them at home.  It would be an ideal way to wind down and relax._

_To forget the girl he was obsessing over, he substituted thoughts of her snatch with work for a while.  Engrossed by what needed to be done, he lost track of time and didn’t realize it was the end of the day until the men started filing into the hall to punch out.  Only when the coast was clear did he decide to leave the videos for another time and locked the room up for the weekend._

_The zoo should’ve been emptied out by the time he surfaced to the outside.  Usually it was.  Believing he was alone when he strolled along the path between the maintenance quarters and the administration building, a grasping hand catching his sleeve startled him.  He never startled easy and was mad about being caught off guard but prepared to fight until he saw Bryn’s smiling face.  Out of her zookeeper uniform, she was dressed in the most feminine pink blouse he’d ever seen, a black pleated skirt and black knee high socks.  Goddamn her.  He didn’t want to deal with her today!_

_“Hey!  Haven’t seen you in a few days.”_

_“Been busy.”_

_“Do you have my panties?  I need to take them back.”_

_The unexpected news crushed him.  “Ah-ah-I th-ought you gave them to m-me.”_

_The subtle confession made her beam bright, like a bonfire in a gloomy wood._

_“Liked them more than you let on, didn’t you?”  she teased.  “Do you have them with you right now?  I_ do _need them back.”_

_Disappointed both in giving them back and in himself for that disappointment, he returned them to her.  Surprise quickly replaced it when, after taking them, she replaced the panties with another pair._

_“I thought maybe the scent would be worn off by now and you’d need another pair,” she explained.  “I masturbated in these ones to make the scent stronger.”_

Don’t take them, Dennis!  Don’t!

_He wanted to thank her but feared it meant giving in to further temptation.  Instead he kept his mouth shut and stuffed the new panties, lacy and black, into his pocket with shame._

_“Nobody’s around,” she purred in a seductive tone that went straight to his loins.  “I know you don’t like to touch or be touched but… I thought maybe…_ Maybe _we could try kissing again.”_

_Dennis inhaled sharply and shook his head._

_“Bryn, it’s not…”_

_“Not a good idea, I know.  Maya’s on vacation with her family for a week and I can’t stop thinking about us.  I don’t think I’m alone in that thought.  Kiss me, Dennis.  End this torture for us both._ Give in _, damn it.”_

_He stood his ground and glared at her, wishing from the core of a soul that he wasn’t sure was his own that she would give up.  Those words were unknown to her vocabulary, it seemed.  The offer, however, tantalized him far more than the panties and bottled up lust made refusal difficult.  Taking a step forward, he told her, “We need to talk.”_

_A smile crossed her strawberry lips, parting to mutter, “Yeah, we do.”_

_“Tomorrow morning, nine.  Coffee shop inside the Amtrak station.”_

_Nodding, she agreed.  Then outright nagged, “Dennis.  One touch won’t hurt.  Please.  My body_ aches _for your touch.”_

_Inside the lonesome man, the moral of what was right and the pleasure of what was wrong warred.  Of course he wanted to touch her, to soak his skin with the scented wetness he enjoyed in those gifted panties and to taste the juice of that ripe taboo fruit.  He licked his lips and stared at her with purpose.  She was so desperate for him to do her bidding and he suspected that the panties in his pocket were worn until moments before their encounter.  Stepping closer to her, close enough that their bodies were barely parted by free space, he groaned in frustration._

_“We’ll talk tomorrow,” he said, taking her by the arm where the three-quarter sleeves covered her flesh.  “Come out this way so nobody will see you.”_

_Their detour through the dingy, yellow painted service hall was taken in a rushed gait and neither spoke as she followed his lead.  Once they were deep enough in the hall and away from the unblinking sight of any security cameras, he backed her against the wall, neediness inflaming the terrible oceans of his eyes and elsewhere.  His hand, shaking with both effort and desire, did her bidding.  Calloused fingers lifted the edge of her skirt and traced the curve of her labia over the panties she wore beneath._

_Gasping, she whimpered as her body shook and face broke open with pleasure.  She was oversensitive from the deprivation of what she wanted from him.  His deft fingers probed between the delicate feminine lips and expertly located the tiny nub of aroused flesh nestled there.  With the cloth covering her, he couldn’t tell by simple touch when he found it but when her knees buckled and she released a throaty moan he knew he’d found the mark.  Unskilled in communication, he was exceptional with female anatomy.  His fingers grinded against her moist private anatomy in a circular motion that reduced her to an aroused, writhing mass._

_Already dampened from her arousal before his manipulation, the panties got wetter with every caress and the tips of his fingers pressed harder against her, rubbing slowly.  Her thighs parted farther, her hips undulated, and his fingers roamed down to the tender cavity where the waiting erection in his pants wanted to be.  Thrusting his fingers up, he pushed the panties a little into her, his thumb continuing to work on her clitoris.  By the time she came with a muffled cry, her panties were completely drenched with her nectar._

_While she caught her breath, she watched him withdraw his fingers, raise them to his nose and sniff.  The scent of recent excitement was inebriating, like a newly bloomed flower.  The black panties she gave him only minutes before were surrendered back to her and she took them with confusion._

_“I want_ this _pair,” he told her, looking at her groin._

_Without question or complaint, she slipped out of them and handed them over in trade.  Concealing the garment in his pocket, he again took her arm and led her the rest of the way through the service hall, back outside to the gates he used privately._

_“Tomorrow morning,” he reminded her._

_She nodded, dazed with mindless bliss, and he watched over her protectively as she ambled away toward her bus stop.  After she disappeared from sight, he turned to go home, spotting a car idling in the parking lot nearby.  Probably just someone who pulled in to make a call or check directions as often happened, he thought nothing of it and walked back through the gates and onto zoo property._

_The tantalizing aroma of the girl’s panties beckoned to him to go inside but he instead opted to walk through the zoo grounds to cool his sexual discord.  He took several pieces of fruit and branches of acacia from the storage room then came around and hand-fed the giraffes the acacia.  He petted and talked to them while they ate, laughing when one overzealous beast’s lolling long blue tongue missed his hand by a narrow margin.  The rhinos were next and he treated them with a few bananas and apples, admiring their horns and thick, impenetrable hides._

_Sanitizer from a small bottle in his pocket, a saving grace, was squeezed into his hand nearly in its entirety to cleanse himself of animals that hadn’t actually touched his skin.  Almost immediately, he wanted to kick himself when he realized he’d just stripped the sacred odor of teenage femininity from his fingers.  The panties were available but that prospect, great as it was, paled in comparison to having her directly on his fingers._

_Now angry at himself, he cut his nightly bonding with the great beasts of the zoo short, making the lions his final stop.  The big cats were a mandatory visit every night, even during time off.  He stood on the other side of the viewing glass, watching the male lazily groom the female with a longing he could not quite identify.  Each chamber of his borrowed heart pointed to the longing for companionship, be it with a friend or a mate.  His head reasoned it was freedom from care; these majestic creatures took no note of what anybody on the opposite side of their glass thought of them.  They didn’t need to.  They were loved, admired and struck respectful fear in all who came to behold them and Dennis knew that was definitely one thing he envied the animals for._

_The male roared and shook his head, suddenly spying Dennis.  Man and beast were locked in a reverent stare down for several moments before the cat rose to its feet and sauntered to the glass where it sat.  In awe of the moment, Dennis pressed the palm of his hand to the glass and the feline king tried to sniff him.  He smiled and murmured adulated sentiments to the feline, wondering if it could hear him.  A massive paw raised and pressed against the glass over his hand, sending Dennis’ heart pounding.  Nails came out as the lion tried to claw through the glass to get to him then, eventually giving up, licked instead before it wandered back to its queen._

_Dennis was never more honored in his life.  Rejected by man, accepted by beast.  The grand idea made him laugh at the wonderful absurdity of it.  Could the King of Beasts sense something greater within the undesirable man?  Most would say no, that the lion was acting instinctively to free its territory from a human threat.  But the cat knew him from his daily visitation and he knew animals possessed a greater sense of knowing than their human counterparts.  Those who denied that animals were sentient, not merely reactionary, and knew far more than what they were credited for disturbed him.  Not only did Dennis know animals had souls and wisdom beyond human comprehension, but he believed they weren’t allowed the tongue for human language because they knew answers to mysteries of the universe forbidden to mankind.  This recognition between feline and man was a sign.  The lion shared a bond with him because he was extraordinary and nobody could convince him otherwise._

Only a soulless person believes animals have no soul, _was his one lingering conviction._

_You don’t chose a cat, a cat chooses you.  Grateful for the rare chance to be chosen by the ruling deity of them all, he said good night to the living version of his beloved lost old friend Roary and went home._

_Cold grilled chicken and a small Waldorf salad was his evening meal while he read a book about DID case studies and theories written by Dr Karen Fletcher, the therapist Barry went to see.  The more he read from Fletcher, the deeper his intrigue became.  Just once he’d like to meet and talk to her himself but Barry told her lies, that he was an undesirable, an unwanted and dangerous alter with no moral fiber.  Anger toward Barry seethed in him and he decided to use the negative energy to work out a little with his weight set.  Chest and arms were the target groups and his favorites; he was just vain enough to enjoy watching his muscles flex and bulge while lifting._

_A good portion of the night was spent working out to ease stress and frustration before he took a long, cold shower to restore his heated muscles.  His pajamas were donned, lush warmth over his chilly body, and he ventured into another storage closet in search of any containers that may hold some of his belongings, praying to find Roary.  All he wanted was one stuffed animal.  Why was that too much to ask for?  Why couldn’t Barry hold on to that one small sentiment?_

_Again he found containers for everyone except himself and Patricia.  Not wanting to unwittingly find any more of Orwell’s anal toys, he steered far away from the scholar’s possessions.  Dinner threatened to come up with the mere thought of it.  A grimace soured his face when it occurred to him that he and Orwell shared the same anus and damned the other alter for his disgusting kink.  God knew what else Orwell shoved up their ass._

_Trying to blot the ghastly idea from his mind, his eyes landed on a Hedwig container.  It was possible for Roary to be in the kid’s belongings.  But he wasn’t, at least not in that particular bin, though the possibility inspired him.  He returned to the living quarters to search the closet where he found Orwell’s toy and ransacked Hedwig’s things there, still to no avail.  A few more places were searched but he neither found anything marked with his name or any sign of Roary in Hedwig’s stuff._

_When he yawned, the clock on the stand beside the bed told him it was close to midnight.  So much of the night was wasted in an unproductive hunt for the one thing he knew would give him great comfort.  He ended the futile search and went to bed.  In mourning for Roary’s disappearance, he forgot Bryn’s panties abandoned in the pocket of the pants he’d uncharacteristically left in the bathroom during his shower.  Too tired to use them even if they were in his hand, he rolled over and shut his eyes, imagining with all of his might that he was clutching Roary against his chest._

_“The girl hasn’t known suffering a day in her life,” lectured Patricia the following morning as Dennis prepared their breakfast.  “She walks around in a haze of rainbows and sunshine like that usurper Barry, never a problem or care in the world.”_

_“I’ve tried to push her away,” argued Dennis.  “She won’t take no for an answer.”_

_“But you_ encourage _her!  Accepting her knickers to feed your sickness like they were a priceless treasure!  I told you if you can’t keep your illness under control…”_

_“I’m under control.”_

_“You quake like a junkie whenever she’s near.”_

_“I haven’t done anything with her.”_

_“Get rid of the girl, Dennis, before you do.  She will only bring misery.  We don’t want to put you back in The Dark.”_

_“You won’t have to.”_

_“We need you, Dennis.  Do_ not _take a misstep.”_

 _Despite the early hour, the air quality suffocated him in a thick blanket of humidity when he stepped outside to walk to the bus stop.  Despite showering before leaving home, a sheen of sweat already covered his body.  Stopping outside the gates, he rolled up the sleeves of his shirt to elbow length, eyes on the employee parking lot, already filling for the day.  That was the lot where the car idled the night before when he walked Bryn out.  The zoo was vacated at that time, he knew, but now in seeing vehicles belonging to his coworkers, he wondered if someone slipped under his radar and lingered longer than usual.  If it_ was _a zoo employee, nothing could be done, except to wait and deal with trouble if and when it came._

_The bus arrived just as he did and though the cold air conditioning was welcomed, he loathed the confinement with strangers who had mysterious past whereabouts.  The Yellow Rag was taken from his jeans as a barrier between himself and them._

_The Rag was useless against his own mind when his eye caught movement from across the aisle.  A man was itching his arm.  The gesture gave Dennis the annoying sensation of insects crawling across his skin and he grew direly uncomfortable.  He turned to distract himself with the view of the passing neighborhood._

_Finally his turn to get off, he rang the bell with the Yellow Rag wrapped around his hand, then exited the bus so fast he all but ran.  Stifling heat assaulted him again but it was worlds better than the germs and grime of the bus.  The Amtrak station wasn’t far, a quick ten minute walk, and he had enough spare time for a stop in a corner store to purchase a bottle of water.  Why did the humidity have to be so hellish today of all days?  By the time he reached his destination was going to be a soaking, stinking mess._

_It was always Dennis who arrived early to his appointments but today he was the last to arrive.  Bryn was already waiting, bare legs crossed at the ankles beneath the small window table she sat at, coffee in hand and staring at her phone.  He stopped to admire her in the distant anonymity before, with a deep breath, he entered and joined her at the table._

_“Good morning!”  she addressed with vigor and an ebullient smile that got the butterflies in his stomach fluttering.  “I wanted to get here first to make up for making you wait at our dinner date.”_

_He cringed when she referred to the dinner as a date._

_“That’s kind of you,” he said.  “I’m gonna grab a tea.  Are you good?”_

_She held up the cup of coffee in her hand for display._

_“I literally got it three minutes ago,” she notified.  “I’m good.”_

_He went to the counter and ordered a large unflavored green tea, observing the girl as he waited.  She was wearing, of all things, a sunshine yellow knitted dress that was high on her smooth thighs and flared out from her waist.  Her long red hair was pulled back into a ponytail and the remnants of sunburn reddened the bare skin of her chest and arms.  Her shoes were high wedges, yellow to match her dress, and no doubt would raise her above the rather short physical height he cursed Kevin for when she stood.  Her nails, both toes and fingers, were painted the same shade of yellow as the dress but that seemed to be the only make up she wore._

A sun fairy _, was his bewitched thought._

_Jealousy blackened his mood with the soot of insecurity when he noticed every male in the vicinity either peeked at her sideways or outright stared at her.  She wanted him now but eventually she would think he was nothing special and therefore replaceable.  One smiling glance shared with any of these other men would take her from him._

_For now she chose him, whatever her reasons.  And he came to give her his final decision on the subject with an explanation for it.  He didn’t know how she was going to take it but when his name was called to pick up his tea, he sighed and returned to the table to find out._

_“I can’t wait to tell Maya about our breakthroughs,” she said happily as he sat across from her._

_“She still doesn’t know?”_

_“No, I figured we’d continue to make more progress first to show her that you’re not a bad guy.  Hey!  I wore yellow today because it’s your favorite color.”_

_“You… look…”  His eyebrows raised in veneration as his eyes inched up what he could see of her body.  “Beautiful.”_

_“Thanks!  Did you enjoy the panties last night?”_

_“Oh  I, uh, I was too exhausted to use them last night.”_

_Her body slumped with disappointment._

_“That sucks.  Anyway, I’m glad you wanted to meet to talk today because I have things to say too.”_

_“You do?”_

_“Yeah.  I think I know part of why you’re hesitant to have sex with me.”_

_His eyebrow arched and lips pursed, waiting with his guard up to hear her answer._

_She continued, “So I went…”  She showed a stapled pair of folded papers pulled from her purse and slid them over the table at him.  “…to Planned Parenthood and got tested.”_

_“Tested for what?”_

_She gaped at him like she couldn’t believe he asked and murmured quietly:  “For STDs.  Those are my results.  I’m clean.”_

_“Bryn…”_

_“I’m on birth control too but we can use condoms if you’re still worried about the touch thing.”_

_He released a long, tortured sigh and stared at the test results without reaching for them._

_“Go ahead,” she urged, “read them.  I wanted them for you.”_

_He shook his head, nervously rubbing his scalp with his palm.  He wanted to read the test results not because he didn’t trust her but because he wanted to verify with his own eyes that she was healthy and good.  At the same time he abstained for the sake of staying a good man so his hand stayed where it was:  in the bend of his elbow in the cross of his arms over his chest._

_“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” he imparted, doing his damnedest to look directly into her eyes so she knew he meant what he said.  “About your offer.”_

_She edged closer to him at the end of her chair.  “Mmm-hmm?”_

_“I…. can’t…. sleep with you, Bryn.”_

_She sat bolt right, horrified and hurt.  It was clear she expected a favorable verdict he wasn’t giving.  “Why not?  I’m_ sixteen _!  I can give legal consent to anybody I damn well please to give it to!  You_ won’t _get in trouble!”_

_“Keep your voice down.  Calm yourself.”_

_He waited a few seconds for her to rein in the emotions threatening to burst from her like a tornado.  Red with embarrassment, frustration and the urge to cry, she avoided eye contact with him.  Dennis didn’t know where one emotion ended and the other began but when she seemed strong enough, he spoke._

_“It’s not because I don’t want you.  Because I do.  I want you_ too _much.  You’re all I can think about and I sometimes have to stay away from you because I’m afraid I can’t control myself.”_

 _“But, Dennis, that’s why we_ need _to have sex!  It’ll relieve the tension…”_

_“Bryn, I’m a sex addict.  I’m incurable.  If I take you to bed I don’t know what will happen.”_

_“I do!”  She laughed.  “We’ll have_ a lot _of sex and a_ hell _of a great time!”_

_“N-no, Bryn.  No.  You don’t know what you’re askin’ for, what you wanna get yourself into.  You would have a great time.  For a while.  Until you get tired and sore and I wanna keep at you.  I won’t stop.  You’ll get hurt and I don’t mean your emotions.  I’m not refusin’ you because of your age or because we work together or because I’m not attracted to you.  There is nothin’ I want more than to take you to bed and pound you senseless.  But it’s dangerous for us both.  I’m tryin’ to be good.  You understand, don’t you?  Please tell me you do.”_

_She didn’t say anything, couldn’t even look at him, and that hurt him more than he expected it to._

_“I care very much about you,” he rushed to explain.  “More than I wanted to.  I’m afraid for you.  I don’t want to hurt you.  You don’t know what you do to me.  But I know what I’d do to you and that scares me.”_

_“It’s just sex, Dennis.”_

_“Not for me it isn’t.  It’s a Pandora’s box you_ will _regret openin’.”_

_“What about our friendship…”_

_“I’d like to stay friends.  I need someone to talk to, maybe do things with.  But I can’t trust myself around you.”_

_“Please, Dennis.  This isn’t fair.”_

_“If life was fair we’d be in bed right now.  You are so perfect in_ every _way._ Everything _I’ve always wanted.”_

_“What if I can convince Maya to give you another chance?  We can share you and switch off.”_

_“I love that idea but it’s like giving an alcoholic a drink.”_

_“I really like you, Dennis.  I just want to have fun and make you feel better.  After you touched me last night, I went home and masturbated while thinking of you three times.  I couldn’t stop thinking about what it would be like to have you inside me.  I’m just a girl, Dennis.  If you get to be too much, I will tell you.  I can make you stop.”_

_“Take a good long look at me, Bryn.  You’re not strong enough to make me stop.”_

_“I trust you.”_

_“Then you have more faith in me than I have in myself.  I couldn’t live with myself if I hurt you, Bryn.  I’m sorry.  I’m so very sorry.”  He rose from his chair.  “I gotta go.”_

_Then, abruptly as a punch to the face, he left without bothering to take his tea with him._

_****_

“What did you do to Marcia when you took her into the other room?”

The question was an eventuality but it didn’t take the razor edged sting out of the asking.  For a moment he only stared at her dumbly, attempting to gather his thoughts and form his words.

“She didn’t tell you what happened? “  he asked quizzically.  “She must’ve.  You spent so much time together.”

“She said that you wanted her to dance for you.”

“There was more to it than that.”

“I’ll bet there was.”

 _“_ She wasn’t the first and there were a few who were younger than her.”

 _Fuck me, Dennis!_   the young girl’s voice moaned, the ghost of a far off memory.

Casey instinctively moved closer to the wall farthest from him.

“I never forced any of them,” he tried to diffuse the situation.

“You tried to force Marcia,” was her testy accusation.

Caught in the tangle of his words, he remained quiet.  Casey was livid to an overwhelming capacity.  All the debaucheries he may have committed raced behind the hateful flare of her eyes.  She wanted to hurt him more than ever and he didn’t blame her.

“If you raped her or anyone else….”

“I would _never_ do _that_ ,” he snapped, the blue oceans of his eyes brewing an angry storm.  “Never.”

 _“How would_ I _know?”_

Backing down but not cooling off, Casey glared at him with the recrimination from her accumulated years of getting raped.  Being a victim himself did not excuse him from becoming a predator.  Her point of view was valid and he saw it, of course he did.  How could he not after all he was responsible for doing to her?  The dissension between them made the room a private hell; she wanted to make an example of him by beating him to a bloody pulp to avenge herself and all others who had been in her predicament.

“I know what it looks like,” he amended, his face relaxing only slightly.  “But I swear to you, I never forced myself on anybody.  I could never bring myself to do that.  I have never raped or killed anyone.”

“You bully and intimidate…”

 _Fuck me, Dennis!_   This time the voice was much more mature and a menacing demand rather than an erotic plea.  It sobered him to his own reality and turned his stomach.

“There’s a big difference between bein’ intimidatin’ and bein’ a bully.  I can avoid physical confrontation if I’m intimidatin’.  Nobody messes with us.  But I do not instigate physical confrontation like a bully.  _You_ understand.  I’m the protector.  I _have_ to be strong.  Think back on things, Casey.  Other than tryin’ to get your friend to dance, I caused no harm.  I just wanted you girls to stay in the room and behave.  Please, open your eyes.  I am _not_ who you think I am.”  His face lightened with a desperate anxiety and his voice broke when he whispered, “Please see me with your heart and not your eyes.”

“What did you do to Marcia, Dennis?”  she pursued.

He tried to uphold his iron composure but struggled with figuring out how to make her understand now that he at last had a captive ear who wanted to listen.  This was what he wanted, he reminded himself, and it was proof that you really needed to be careful what you wish for.  He was done with these worms of deception that relentlessly gnawed at his stomach.  Time to be as transparent as water with her.

“It’s difficult for me to control.  My compulsion for sex.  Some days are better than others and I’ve managed to find other outlets if I don’t have a willin’ partner to engage in intercourse.  I learned to be a voyeur, that’s why I like watchin’ the girls dance naked.  I ask them to dance because it’s the lesser of two evils.  Dancin’ for somebody is better than getting’ raped.  They know that and because they fear one, they do the other.”

“Do you touch them when they dance for you?”

“Sometimes.”

“You touched Marcia, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.  I’m not proud of what I did, Casey.  I hate myself for doin’ it.  But I couldn’t help it.  I just wanted…”  Cutting himself short, he breathed deep.  “It was no excuse and it backfired on me but I was gentle.  I sat in the chair and pulled her close to stand over me.  I asked her to take her clothes off and dance, give me a strip tease, grind against me…”

“I don’t need to know the details,” she growled, her hands raised as if to fend him off.

“I _need_ to tell them.  I _need_ to be honest with you.”  He paused, stared down at his hands and, with a worried expression on his face, continued, “She wouldn’t move, too afraid to do anything but beg and cry.  I reached up her skirt and put my hand into her panties.  I only meant to stimulate her, to get her willin’.  I had no intention on forcin’ her if she didn’t respond to my touch.  I just touched her a little.  You know the rest.”

The Yellow Rag, produced like a magician’s doves from a sleeve or pocket, was grasped tightly in his hands before he was even aware of his doing it.

“You’re disgusting,” she spat, her voice scathing and her face wrecked with repulsion.

“I am, I know.”  His pace of speaking slowed, wanting to make sure the girl fully understood what he was about to tell her.  “Dr Fletcher said that often male victims of childhood sexual abuse become hypersexual and addicted to sex.  That my need for validation drives me to get acceptance from strangers because it’s safe for me to receive temporary affection and intimacy without heartbreak or attachment.  She said I base my self-worth on my sexuality.”  He looked at her and gave a nervous, awkward smile.  “I just want to be wanted because I’ve been rejected by everyone we know.  Includin’ the other alters.  They call me an undesirable. It means I’m unwanted because of my behavior.  But I’ve been good.  I _swear_.  I don’t force myself on women.  I _want_ to be good, I _want_ to be better.  It’s not my fault I’m like this but I _am_ tryin’ to change.”

Conflict warred inside her head for him and his story, causing him to be conflicted between hope and predicted common rejection.  She now knew very well the scars he bore because of what he’d been through.  She had her own and they weren’t all on the outside.  Part of her must’ve wanted to reach out to him, to touch his face in reassurance and hold him.  The other part certainly held no sympathy.  In him, the victim had become the abuser and he imagined she wanted to plunge her hunting knife into his heart and watch him slowly bleed out.

The desperate vulnerability that engulfed him kept her hand from lashing out.  He now sat in uncomfortable silence, waiting for her sentence to be passed.

“Sex offenders can’t be rehabilitated.  Barry was right to keep you in The Dark,” she fumed and the deflated look of defeat carved across his face because he knew in that moment she’d turned against him.

He lowered his head in shame and submitted to her abuse, as he was used to doing.

“Do you think I deserved what I got from my uncle?”

His head shot back up so fast he could’ve gotten whiplash.  “No!  No, why would—"

“Do you think I provoked him?  That I paraded around in short, see-through dresses or my bra and panties in front of him?  Or conveniently left the bathroom door open when I showered?  I probably slept naked while waiting for him to come into my room too, right?”

“I’ve _nev_ _-er_ said _anything_ like that!”

“I’m such a stupid, worthless little white trash whore and since I did nothing to stop him, deep down I must’ve liked it!  Isn’t that what predators like you always say?  I asked for it, didn’t I?!”

Despite the heat from the candles and the humidity from outside, Casey shuddered as if caught in a cold snap.  On the verge of tears, she shook her head to clear the violations from memory then stood and strode out of the room as fast as her injured calf allowed.

“Where are you goin’?”  he asked, all thoughts of himself suddenly shoved to the back burner as he rose from the chair.  “You shouldn’t be walkin’ around!  You’re still hurt!”

The advice went unheeded as she stomped downstairs and out into the rain.  The bad weather, the pain in her calf and the fact that he was in pursuit of her didn’t mean anything.  All that mattered was that she got away as fast as she could.  She needed to escape, he expected, to run from her ghosts.  Dropping to her knees in the grass, she hid her face in her hands and sobbed, not hearing his voice behind her, calling.

“Casey, please…”

Raising her face to the sky, she purged her soul of her past with a primordial scream, first one then another and a third.

“Casey, please stop!  Please!  They’ll hear you and find us!”

Once again his hands were around her wrists, prying her hands away from her face.

“I _never_ said _any_ of those things.  I don’t believe that any of it applies to you.  You were a victim.  It wasn’t your fault.”

Gradually returning to her senses, she realized who he was, that he wasn’t John at all, and her body slackened.  It was as if she’d awakened from hypnosis at the snap of a mentalist’s fingers.

“I promised I’d protect you, even if it’s from yourself,” he muttered soft as black velvet.  “That monster will never touch you again.  I promise that too.”

Fingers twitched at his side from his denial to bring a furtive hand up to enclose her unsteady one in a gesture of friendship and compassion.  The need to reach out to the one person he’d ever found who could commiserate with him was overwhelming yet he dared not touch for fear of more cruel rejection.  If he held her hand, she’d strike him and demand he go to hell!

“Let’s go back inside,” he recommended after a while.  “We’re gettin’ soaked.  C’mon.”

He took a few steps to lead her back into their lair but when he turned around she wasn’t following.  He faltered, undecided about what to do.  Both of them were raw and fragile, ready to fall apart at any given moment and he did not want everything to dissolve around them like powder in a liquid.  He didn’t have to speak; she knew from his stern expression to go without challenge and off she followed in a solidary to ward off the bad things that had come to haunt them.  Back upstairs, he instructed her to sit in the chair then used his precious Yellow Rag to dry the raindrops from her face, hair and arms.

“Remove your wet clothes,” he said without menace or yearning.  “Everything, even your underwear if it’s wet.”  When she glared at him with the same defiant look she usually reserved for John, he was quick to add with gentleness, “I won’t look.”

He slid her bag closer to the chair then walked to the window again, turning his back to her to grant privacy.  She took full advantage; he heard the sounds of her wrestling free of the wet garments.  Purely by accident, he caught her reflection in the glass of the broken window, and broke his promise as he watched while she sat wet and naked in the chair, doing nothing for a few moments.  She surreptitiously checked out of the corner of her eye, saw his backside silhouetted in the flickering candlelight and the gloom of the storm, unaware that he was still able to see her.  Then her eyes traveled down her own body and she frowned in disgust when they reached the ugly, raised scars below.  Time for him to step in, he decided.

“How you doin’?”  he asked, keeping his back to her and his broken promise covert.  “Almost done?”

“Almost.”

His question put her into action.  She scoured through her backpack to the bottom to fish out a fresh bra and panties and put them on as fast as she could.  He felt awful for violating his promise with his cursed impulses; it stabbed his well-meaning heart and he sighed, rolling his eyes away from the sight he enjoyed more than he liked to admit.  Then her voice interrupted his self-loathing:  “I’m done.”

Having no reason to doubt her, he turned around and found her standing, facing him in only her underwear, her scars and body in full view.  A groan escaped his throat and he licked his lips as his eyes inherently roved over her body, his face a portrait of unadulterated lust.  She was testing him, he realized, but unsure how.  Maybe it was a worry that she was unattractive to anybody who knew what happened to her.  That was why he kept what happened to him untold at any cost.  Or perhaps it was to see if she could still be seductive with the heinous scars she’d marred her nubile body with.  He suspected that, like him, she had a need to be wanted.

For a moment, they both expected he would touch her, stroke the scars that ran down her midriff, draw her near and kiss her before ravaging her on the bed.  He knew the hunger to play that out was reflected in his eyes.  Which was a confusing, welcome bombshell when he reached down, took one of the yellow fleeces from the mattress and cloaked it around her shoulders, closing it in the front to hide her young, tempting body from sight.

“We can’t do somethin’ we’ll both regret right after,” he advised softly.  “Sit.  Eat your chocolate.”

Out of options, she did as told, returning to the mattress to nibble on the chocolate piece she left for herself while he arranged her clothing, bra and panties included, on the old vanity to dry.

“Let me change outta my wet clothes,” he said.  “Stay here.  Don’t run off like that again.  I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

As he picked out dry clothing from the closet, he felt her eyes on his back.

“Dennis?”

“Yeah?”

“Who will protect me from you?”

Arms full of dry clothes, he gazed upon her, wounded.

“Nobody needs to, Casey.”

Then he left the room, leaving her to ponder his curt reply.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the longer still wait for this update. That was due in part to the very heavy topics this installment dealt with. It weighed VERY heavy on my heart. Also, I'm still making much needed and big life changes that have taken me away from my writing for a while, which will be going on for a long time, unfortunately. Nevertheless, I keep my promises: continue sticking with this story and it will be updated to the end. There is soooo much story to tell in Fragment and, as I stated before, it's a very long novel. This is my longest chapter yet (41 pages in Word!) and part of that is because I wrote in extra stuff to reward you for your loyal readership and for your patience in waiting the long passages of time between updates. So this chapter is dedicated to you, loyal readers, with love from your humble writer. 
> 
> Till next time: XOXO  
> James


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